Jerrod Sessler, a Navy veteran and former NASCAR driver, is running against incumbent Republican Congressman Dan Newhouse in Washington’s 4th District, which Newhouse has represented since 2015.

In an interview with the Yakima Herald-Republic, Sessler said: “There is no way that a devout Muslim should be in Congress, because they can’t take the oath of office. Their fundamental belief system is anti-American.”

The congressional candidate also cited passages in the Quran that call for nonbelievers to be killed. Many Muslims say the passages are often misinterpreted. Sessler also said that a majority Muslim Congress would threaten the security of the Constitution.

“What if the majority of Congress was Muslim?” Sessler told the Yakima Herald-Republic. “How safe and secure would our Constitution be? It wouldn’t be.”

Sessler told the Yakima Herald-Republic that, his own views aside, if elected he would engage with and be respectful of Muslim representatives in Congress.

He also told the paper that Muslims are welcome in America and that he supports Muslim Americans ascending to leadership positions, just not in Congress.

On social media, the Republican later defended his remarks.

In a comment on X, formerly Twitter, Sessler wrote: “As divisive as it is in America, Muslims may legally take the oath of office. Some even place their hand on the Quran which unequivocally calls for the killing of anyone that is not Muslim.

“It is nonsensical for people who love and appreciate all that it is to be American to vote for a Muslim, especially a radical one. Just because it is legal doesn’t mean it is helpful to the country, to our kids or to our future.”

This is not the first time Sessler has made such remarks. During the Washington primary in August, he argued that Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar could not uphold the constitution because she was a devout Muslim.

“Muslims cannot uphold the Constitution. It goes against their religious beliefs,” Sessler said, adding, “Shame on her voters for putting her there if they actually believe in America.”

There are three Muslim Americans in Congress: Omar, Indiana Representative André Carson and Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib.

Who Is Jerrod Sessler?

In addition to being a Navy veteran, Sessler is a former business owner and engineer. In 2004, he founded a maintenance company called HomeTask, Inc., but he has campaigned full time since his first political bid in 2021.

On his campaign website, Sessler described his “difficult and impoverished childhood” and positioned himself as “the poster child for the American dream.” If elected, his promises to defend the American dream, protect constitutional rights and national security, and be a voice for the country’s future. He is also committed to defending Second Amendment rights.

Sessler first ran against Newhouse in 2022, but he did not advance past the primaries. A Trump supporter, Sessler was in Washington, D.C., on January 6. However, he did not enter the Capitol. The former president has endorsed Sessler over Newhouse, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot.

Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign via email to ask whether the former president endorses Sessler’s opinions on Muslims in Congress.

In April, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Jerrod Sessler is a fantastic candidate and will be a GREAT Congressman for Washington State’s 4th Congressional district. A Navy Veteran, Entrepreneur, Loving Father and Husband, Jerrod will fight hard every day to secure the border, stand for the Rule of Law, strengthen our military, take care of our Vets, Defend our Nation, and protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”

In comparison, Trump called Newhouse “weak and pathetic.”

Source: Newsweek

Laura Loomer, the well-known anti-Muslim extremist and Donald Trump sycophant, rode in the former president’s jet to the debate Tuesday, a shocking, if not surprising, embrace by Trump of one of the most blatant, open bigots in American public life.

Fox News broadcast footage of Trump’s campaign plane touching down for the debate in Philadelphia, with Loomer exiting the plane a few minutes ahead of the former president. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Trump has been close with Loomer for years and has repeatedly praised her, including when she won the Republican primary for an ultimately doomed 2020 congressional race.

Loomer has called Muslims “savages,” celebrated the deaths of migrants and called Islam a “cancer” and has used the hashtag “#proudislamophobe.”

“I’m pro-white nationalism,” the anti-Muslim activist, who is Jewish, said in 2017. She added that “this country really was built as the white Judeo-Christian ethnostate” and that immigration and calls for diversity were “starting to destroy this country.”

Loomer was barred from both Uber and Lyft in 2017 after writing on Twitter (now X) that “someone needs to create a non Islamic form of Uber or Lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver.”

“I don’t care about Christ Church,” she wrote separately after a white supremacist gunman killed 51 Muslim worshippers in two mosques in New Zealand.

She has also called for Democrats to be executed for treason.

Loomer’s racism, of course, extends to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president.

“If Kamala Harris wins, the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand,” she wrote Tuesday.

“I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon?” Vance said at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., describing a recent conversation between himself and a friend.

“And we were like, ‘Maybe it is Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts,’ and then we sort of finally decided maybe it’s actually the U.K. — since Labour just took over,” Vance quipped.

While the Ohio senator made the remarks earlier this month, they have resurfaced after Trump formally selected him as his running mate — sparking fresh backlash from British political figures.

“The fact Vance can so easily miscategorize the U.K. in this way, and make such flippant remarks in public, so casually delivered — his shocking line raised a laugh from his audience — tells me that, to this potentially incoming vice-president, the special relationship has become no more than a racist joke,” Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the former Conservative Party co-chair, wrote in The Independent.

In a post on the social platform X, Warsi, the first Muslim woman to serve in the British Cabinet, said that Vance’s comments represented the “everyday Islamophobia / anti Muslim racism which is casually thrown around by some of the most powerful in our societies.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner rejected Vance’s suggestions, arguing that Trump’s running mate had said “quite a lot of fruity things in the past.”

“Look, I don’t recognize that characterization,” Rayner said during an interview on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain.”

“I’m very proud of the election success that Labour had recently. We won votes across all different communities, across the whole of the country. And we’re interested in governing on behalf of Britain and also working with our international allies.”

Rayner went as far to say that she was looking forward to meeting Vance in the event that the Republican duo was elected, but stressed that it was ultimately “up to the American people to decide.”

In the same speech, Vance urged his “Tory friends,” who were ousted from power after 14 years of leadership, “to get a handle on this,” referring explicitly to immigration, which remained a key issue throughout the U.K election.

Andrew Bowie, a conservative member of Parliament, blasted the senator over his remarks, acknowledging in an interview with Times Radio that while he clashed with Labour on numerous policy issues, he “absolutely” disagreed with Vance’s suggestion that the party would establish an “Islamist country.”

The 39-year-old bestselling author and former venture capitalist was announced as Trump’s VP pick on Monday, July 15, at the Republican National Convention, just two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa.

Source: The Hill

In the letter, the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations told Biden a special envoy to monitor and combat Islamophobia at the State Department could help address the issue that affects the third largest religious group in the country. The envoy could support efforts both in the United States and internationally against anti-Muslim hate crimes and where Muslims are denied constitutional rights.

The White House did not respond to questions about whether the administration will appoint a special envoy to combat Islamophobia. But Biden condemned violence against Muslim Americans in a statement last week marking the beginning of Ramadan.

Biden repealed a 2017 executive order by former President Donald Trump that prevented foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. He also hosted a meeting with more than 20 leading Muslim organizations, and his administration declared China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims a genocide.

Source: USA Today

“Last week, the decision made by President Trump to threaten another nation’s sovereignty has left Americans feeling less secure and less safe. The decision to assassinate Iran’s Major General Qassim Suleimani, which was made without the knowledge of the U.S. Congress, has President Trump leading us closer to war with Iran, a country whose leadership has already threatened retaliation towards the US.

We strongly condemn war with Iran, and we support the legislation proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ro Khanna to block funding for war without congressional approval.”

Source: MPAC’s Facebook

Hosted by the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a coalition of leading national and local Muslim organizations, the advocacy days draw hundreds of Muslims.

This two-day event was designed to connect national, regional and state Muslim organizations and community members with their elected representatives in Congress. USCMO’S advocacy days focused on promoting a legislative agenda in support of equality and social justice issues that will be of benefit to all Americans, regardless of faith or background.

Some of these issues include:

• A round-up endorsement of all legislation pushing back against the Trump Administration’s “Muslim Travel Ban” and “Digital Muslim ban.” Advocates will also urge support for measures that secure the rights of all travelers.

• Supporting DREAMers, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and opposing legislation that would further restrict immigration to the U.S.

• Promoting common sense gun-safety reform that does not impact the rights or safety of minority communities, including American Muslims.

• Ensuring all communities have a right and means to access nutritious, sufficient, affordable and culturally appropriate food in this year’s Farm Bill.

Last year’s event was attended by more than 450 delegates from 30 states who met with nearly 230 congressional offices. Muslim delegates participating in last year’s advocacy days event met with a third of the House of Representatives and almost half of the Senate.

Source: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

In a report by the New York Times, 9 out of the 11 former ambassadors contacted by the publication thought that the plan was “wrongheaded, dangerous or deeply flawed.”

Trump’s decision to recognize the contested city as Israel’s capital as well as relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv has drawn sharp criticism from nearly every corner of the globe, with the significant exception of Israel.

The status of Jerusalem is a central issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with both sides claiming the city as their capital.

Palestinians, who covet the eastern parts of the ancient city as the capital of their future state, denounced Trump’s declaration as having “destroyed” a two state solution and threatened to boycott an upcoming visit by US Vice President Mike Pence.

The international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, insisting the issue can only be resolved in negotiations.

This point was reiterated by UN chief Antonio Guterres, who stressed his opposition to “any unilateral measures that would jeopardize the prospect of peace”.

Source: i24NEWS

The rally, dubbed “Today I am a Muslim Too,” was billed on social media as “a day of solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters in reaction to the vicious attacks by (President Donald Trump).”

Trump has made numerous disparaging remarks about Muslims and an appeals court recently put a halt to his executive order that temporarily barred all refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the country. Trump has vowed to issue a new order tailored to the court’s decision. Hearing that there were between 7,000-10,000 people who came to the #IAmAMuslimToo rally today!! An absolute incredible show of solidarity!

Demonstrators toted American flags and maroon signs that said, “I am a Muslim, too,” as one activist donned a Trump costume and paraded through the crowd with a bald eagle in a cage.

The list of speakers was extensive, according to the program. In addition to entrepreneur and Def Jam Recordings co-founder Russell Simmons, who helped organize the event, attendees were scheduled to hear from rabbis, imams, a Sikh, a Buddhist, Episcopalian and Presbyterian reverends, a Mennonite, a Seventh Day Adventist minister, a Hindu, a Baptist pastor, local politicians and civil rights advocates. Actor Susan Sarandon and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also spoke, and former first daughter Chelsea Clinton tweeted that the rally marked her 2-year-old’s first protest.

Source: CNN

Now Donald Trump — a man who has repeatedly cast doubt on the patriotism of Muslims — is the president-elect, and he has selected a national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who has called Islam a “cancer.” And a deep unease has again seeped into the daily life of many here in this Muslim community of about 1,500. There has been a smattering of post-election harassment and insults — at schools, in parking lots, on the road — but nothing to take to the police or put Murfreesboro back in the national headlines.

Murfreesboro is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country and an increasingly diverse one. Muslim and Christian students go to school and play sports together; their families patronize the same restaurants and stores. Residents variously describe the town as a proud example of Southern hospitality, a growing “melting pot,” a suburb of “little blue dot” Nashville and the “buckle on the Bible Belt.” Its downtown with the old courthouse and Confederate-soldiers memorial yields to strip malls and chain stores, new housing developments and old cotton fields, and the university, with its 20,000 undergraduates.

Among the town’s couple hundred places of worship are 59 Baptist churches, including an Arabic Baptist church as well as Grace Baptist, whose deacon in 2010 greeted the construction of the new mosque next door by erecting 23 huge white crosses on the road. There are people such as Abdou Kattih, a pharmacist at Walgreens and one of the mosque’s founders, and Jason Bennett, an evangelical advocate for the homeless and a onetime mosque opponent; the two now consider each other close friends…The day after the election, flowers were left on the mosque’s doorstep, and a stranger approached the new imam, an Egyptian, at the Walmart and welcomed him to town.

“Right now, we’re hoping that it’s going to be calm,” said Saleh Sbenaty, an engineering professor at Middle Tennessee State University and one of the founders of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. “But we don’t know if it’s the calm before the storm or the calm after the storm.”

Continue reading at: The Washington Post

“In terms of Islamophobia in America, for me that’s why it’s important to show up,” he said, AP reported on Sunday, August 7.

Smith kicked off his tour in Dubai to promote his new movie “Suicide Squad”.

The star, who plays the sharpshooter Deadshot in the film, said he’s having fun and tweeting pictures of his time in Dubai, showing that “Hey, it doesn’t look like they hate me, does it?”

He also hinted at the upcoming US presidential elections, saying he believes it’s important “to speak out about the insanity” surrounding the race.

During the past months, Donald Trump has encouraged a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, from a complete ban of Muslims to “extreme vetting” in a CBS News interview last month.

In December, the New York business mogul proposed banning all Muslims from American territory “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

“I think Islam hates us,” Trump told CNN in an interview in March.

Muslims make up 1% of America’s 322 million population, according to Pew Research center.

Facing growing attacks on Muslims, CAIR has launched a new website, Islamophobia.org, to monitor and challenge the growing anti-Muslim bigotry.

In 2014, CAIR published “Know Your Rights and Responsibilities” pocket guide that tells American Muslims to report any actual knowledge of criminal activity without being asked by law enforcement authorities.

“As painful as it is to hear Donald Trump talk and as embarrassing as it is as an American to hear him talk, I think it’s good,” Smith said.

“We get to know who people are and now we get to cleanse it out of our country.”

Source: Aboutislam.net