Lynn Torgerson who is running against Keith Ellison for a Minnesota Congressional seat has an article posted on her campaign site entitled “Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion” and in this statement of her position she says some alarming things. In this article she throws out so many anti-Islam statements, misrepresentations of the Qur’an, anecdotes about the behavior of some Muslims that she says she has noticed on the street that it would take many articles to respond to each. Her campaign seems to be based on fear of Muslims and Islam, and this sort of vicious rhetoric is becoming more and more alarming.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – FBI Director Robert Mueller ordered an independent review on Tuesday of how the agency handled information that the military psychiatrist charged in the Fort Hood shooting had communicated with an anti-American cleric in Yemen.

Mueller asked William Webster, the former head of the FBI and CIA as well as a former judge, to conduct the review of the domestic law enforcement agency's actions and policies before the November 5 shooting that killed 13 people.

Questions have been raised about the handling of e-mails the accused shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, sent to the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been sympathetic to al Qaeda. They were intercepted by U.S. intelligence agencies and examined by U.S. joint terrorism task forces.

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer Angela K. Brown, Associated Press Writer – Tue Dec 1, 10:51 pm ET

FORT WORTH, Texas – The military plans a mental evaluation to determine whether the Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood knew his alleged actions were wrong and whether he's competent to stand trial, his civilian attorney said Tuesday.

Attorney John Galligan said he received notice Tuesday night from Maj. Nidal Hasan's captain that the military likely will issue a "mental responsibility exam" order Wednesday. The notice did not indicate when or where the exam, which is done by what the military calls a sanity board, will take place, Galligan said.

By Ghassan Michel Rubeiz
Friday, 11.20.2009

The impact of unregulated religious propaganda on world peace, public diplomacy and ethical business practices is an issue which merits serious debate. Eccentric religious leaders are free to launch hate "missiles" across international borders. Media networks are free to spew provocative interfaith theology. However, self-appointed champions of politically obsessed religious communities, whatever faith they may be, should realize that defending one's people or one's faith with gestures of hate ends up damaging one's cause more than hurting the target.

Huffington Post
By Ahmed Rehab

The Fort Hood massacre committed by Major Nidal Hassan was a national tragedy that took us all by surprise. It was quickly and widely condemned by the American Muslim community who were as shell-shocked and dismayed as anybody else, and who were additionally concerned about a potential backlash against those who happen to share Hassan’s faith, though not his crime.

It is no surprise that the usual culprits who have built careers out of inciting hysteria against Muslims saw this tragedy as an opportunity on a golden platter. The hate blogs and radio talk shows were quickly abuzz with familiar voices trying hard to extend Hassan’s guilt to every Muslim and the faith they practice .

Unfortunately, there are always the vigilante Joes and Janes out there who consume this stuff with little critical scrutiny and, in some cases, act upon it.

By Khalil AlHajal
Monday, 11.30.2009

Maj. Nidal Hasan's face continues to haunt Muslim and Arab Americans, his image floating around news media endlessly as investigations go on, details emerge and commentators associate his alleged crimes with his religion and ethnicity.
For many Arab and Muslim veterans of the U.S. military, hearing about the victims of the Fort Hood shooting, their families and the stigma caused by the crime hurts that much more.
"It really stings," said Vietnam veteran Ron Amen, who is Arab and Muslim.
He described Hasan's alleged shooting rampage that killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas as the act of a madman.
He hopes not to hear more about the shooter's motivations.
Even if Hasan held radical, distorted religious beliefs that contributed to his crime, Amen said, "who wants to listen to the ramblings of a madman."
"I don't want to hear his story... I can only say that this guy had some sort of nervous breakdown," Amen said. "I don't know what these guys are going through."

NYUnews.com
by Arielle Milkman
Published November 18, 2009

NYU's United Muslims Association held a teach-in at the Kimmel Center yesterday afternoon to rebut "Going Muslim," a controversial column published on Forbes.com last week by Stern professor Tunku Varadarajan.

But rather than condemning Varadarajan's article, most speakers emphasized the importance of solidarity and multicultural understanding in NYU's diverse community.

Forbes
Tunku Varadarajan, 11.09.09, 12:00 AM EST

"Going postal" is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker--archetypically a postal worker--"snaps" and guns down his colleagues.

As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub--disconcertingly--"Going Muslim." This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American--a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood--discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans. This would appear to be what happened in the case of Maj. Hasan.

Fri Nov 6, 10:20 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Fearing that a gunman who killed 13 people at a military facility in Texas may have been Muslim, US Islamic groups braced themselves for a public backlash against the faith on Thursday.

Soon after Pentagon officials named one of the shooters at the Fort Hood facility as Nidal Malik Hasan, groups rallied to condemn an act President Barack Obama had earlier described as a "horrific outburst of violence."

"The guy's name is a Muslim name," Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told AFP, expressing fears about damage to inter-faith relations, already strained by the September 11, 2001 attacks, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer Angela K. Brown, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 1 min ago

FORT WORTH, Texas – An Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people during an attack on his Texas post will likely plead not guilty to the charges against him and may use an insanity defense at his military trial, his attorney said Monday.

John Galligan, the civilian attorney for Maj. Nidal Hasan, said he is considering an insanity defense among other options, but that it's too early to determine his defense strategy.

"Based on the evidence thus far, his mental status must be raised," Galligan told The Associated Press by phone from his office near Fort Hood, about 130 miles southwest of Dallas. "Anybody who allegedly engages in conduct that is completely contradictory to his lifestyle and military career — an insanity defense has to be considered."

Mon Nov 9, 5:30 pm ET

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – The outreach director for the northern Virginia mosque where the suspected Fort Hood shooter sometimes attended prayer services says Maj. Nidal Hasan was not an active member.

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik of the Dar al-Hijrah (dahr al-HIDJ'-ruh) Islamic Center in Falls Church also is denouncing statements from a radical American imam living in Yemen who praised Hasan as a hero on his personal Web site Monday.

By MARK THOMPSON / WASHINGTON Mark Thompson / Washington – Tue Nov 10, 4:50 pm ET

As officials continue to investigate the alleged Fort Hood killer, it is looking increasingly likely that the Army missed several red flags in Major Nidal Malik Hasan's behavior. Many observers say it wouldn't be surprising if such signals had been missed, given that Hasan was a psychiatrist whom the Army desperately needed to help tend to the mental wounds of two wars. But at the same time, some members of the military are quietly discussing the more troubling possibility that the Army looked the other way precisely because Hasan was Muslim. (See pictures of the Fort Hood shootings.)

Army officials strongly deny any suggestion that Hasan's religion resulted in his being given special treatment. But one officer who attended the Pentagon's medical school with Hasan disagrees. "He was very vocal about being a Muslim first and holding Shari'a law above the Constitution," this officer recalls. When fellow students asked, "How can you be an officer and hold to the Constitution?," the officer says, Hasan would "get visibly upset - sweaty and nervous - and had no good answers." This medical doctor would speak only anonymously because his commanders have ordered him not to talk about Hasan, he says.