USA Elections

Brett LoGiurato and Hunter Walker

Time cover mocks Obama

Democrats knew they were in trouble on election night Tuesday when a Virginia Senate seat that was expected to be a blowout victory began to come in much closer than expected.

"When you’re cheering for an eke-out win in Virginia, it’s not going to be a good night," one Democratic strategist told Business Insider. 

Another Democratic insider summed up his impression of the evening’s results in a blunt text message: "Fucking. Bloodbath."  

In almost every sense, the midterm elections were a disaster for the Democratic Party. The Democrats lost their majority in the US Senate, and the final results were shaping up to be close to the worst-case scenario for Democrats in which Republicans would swing eight or nine seats.

In addition to the Senate majority, Democrats were badly beaten further down the ballot. They lost key gubernatorial battles — some in strongholds and others in key targets for pickups. And they were further walloped in the House of Representatives, where Republicans are now on track to have the party’s largest majority since 1928 for the final two years of President Barack Obama’s term.

Republicans were gleeful.

"Feel like we’re surfing at the moment," one Republican official told Business Insider, playing off the theme of a GOP "wave" election.

  BEIRUT: Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil pledged support to remote Christian areas in north Lebanon as he kicked of a tour of Akkar Sunday. Visiting the small border village of Ramah, where he had launched a water well and new lighting for the town, Bassil said that “In this remote border region that is far […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed on Tuesday the importance of equality between Muslims and Christians in Lebanon, reiterating that the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are not linked to Islam. “Lebanon is a model for coexistence between Muslim and Christian. They both live equally,” al-Rahi said from the […]

  SIDON, Lebanon: Christian and Muslim religious figures Tuesday rejected what they said was the sectarian label on regional conflicts, calling on Lebanese to unite in the face of terror threats, during Ashoura commemorations in south Lebanon. The Jaafarite Council, a Shiite religious body, in Sidon held a commemoration of Ashoura and brought together various […]

  The threat of Islamic State has crossed the borders of Syria to neighboring Lebanon, making Christians there arm themselves to defend their land and families from the extremists. RT goes to the Syrian-Lebanese border, to meet the militias. More than 20 people have been killed in northern Lebanon in clashes between the army and […]

  BEIRUT, Lebanon — In some of the worst spillover clashes from the Syrian civil war to strike neighboring Lebanon, fighting raged Sunday in the northern city of Tripoli between the Lebanese Army and Sunni Islamist militants. Eighteen people, including six soldiers, have died in the battles, which began Friday. The fight in Tripoli may […]

  BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai said Friday that some political parties in the country wanted to change the country’s power-sharing governance formula between Muslims and Christians, and expressed his strong opposition to the idea. “MPs did not elect a president, because they are waiting for a signal from certain states,” said Rai, who is […]

  The Qatari envoy who is in the outskirts of Arsal to negotiate in the case of kidnapped soldiers by extremist groups since last August, received on Friday the list of demands of the abductees. According to LBCI: “The Qatari envoy, who is in the outskirts of Arsal, received the list of demands of the […]

 Ben Winsor

ISIS militants drove 600 Shia, Christian and Yazidi male prisoners into the middle of the desert, lined them up along the edge of a ravine, and executed them at point blank range, according to a report by Human Rights Watch released today. 

The inmates, taken from a local prison, were forced to count themselves as they lined up before members of the jihadist militant group opened fire on them with machine guns. 

Human Rights Watch says it spoke to nine survivors of the massacre. They told the organization they made it out alive by rolling into the ravine and pretending to be dead, or were shielded by the bodies of other prisoners who fell on top of them.

BEIRUT: The families of the Lebanese captives held by Nusra Front and ISIS have given the government a 48 hours before they will escalate their protests after meeting with Prime Minister Tamam Salam at the Grand Serail Thursday evening. Speaking on behalf of the families of the 27 Lebanese soldiers and policemen being held captive […]