Islam

Add another conservative activist to the ranks of people blaming the Ft. Hood massacre on Islam. Here’s Gary Bauer, in his end-of-day email sent to supporters, arguing that while some Muslims are all well and good, “there are also ’sleeper cells’ or ’sleeper individuals’ who are jihadist ticking time bombs inside our own ranks.”
Whole letter [...]

You might think that that commentary about a deranged lone gunman ought to await the facts, but you’re not going to get a job at Fox News with that attitude. Raw Story catches Fox’s Brian Kilmeade asking a guest, “Do you think it’s time for the military to have special debriefings of Muslim Army officers [...]

Adam Serwer has an absolutely sterling post about the dangers of assigning collective guilt to American Muslims for the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan:
In the past few months, we’ve seen a number of shootings performed by white men with right-wing fringe beliefs–but while an attempt to assign the responsibility for the murder of George [...]

Ft. Hood’s commander, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, said today that there are unconfirmed reports that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shouted “God is great” in Arabic before opening fire yesterday at the Army base. Again: we will soon be able to hear Hasan’s motivations in his own words. Even if he shouted such a thing, it [...]

Political candidates often invoke God and spirituality on the campaign trail, but Rev. Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign against Torture, would like more pols to live up to those professed beliefs once they’re in office. President Obama, for example, has spoken eloquently of his own religious awakening, and of the importance [...]

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, just released this statement blasting recent Republican accusations that the Council on American-Islamic Relations has sent interns to Capitol Hill to spy on the U.S. government and advance a radical Islamist agenda.
At the heart of this issue is whether or not diverse [...]

I’ve gotten a look at “Muslim Mafia,” the book by David Gaubatz that has compelled four members of Congress to demand investigations of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The foreword was written by Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), as she proudly announced at a press conference this week.
“Since the 1960s,” writes Myrick, “there has been a [...]

One more thing about the four anti-Muslim bigots in Congress using a birther-published book as fodder for their un-American crusade. Adam Serwer at The American Prospect writes:
One of the advantages America has in the war on terror is that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies can potentially draw on the talents and experiences of [...]

Via Justin Elliott, Greg Sargent and Tim Fernholz, the aforementioned Republican members of Congress are incensed that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a lobby group for the American Muslim community, would … lobby Congress. They’ve ordered the House sergeant-at-arms to investigate whether CAIR “is connected to or supports terrorists [and] is running influence operations or [...]

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) has uploaded the video of her press conference with Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.). “About a year ago,” said Myrick, “I learned that CAIR was trying to infiltrate the offices of members of Congress by placing interns in the offices.” She called for [...]