The Winter Olympics city has 20,000 Muslim residents. Now they just need a place to worship.

Russian president Vladimir Putin calls Sochi, site of February’s Winter Olympics, “the biggest construction site on the planet,” and for good reason.

Political correctness is keeping Hollywood from properly stigmatizing Muslims—so said Mississippi Republican Senate candidate Chris McDaniel. He issued this complaint during a 2006 episode of Right Side Radio, a syndicated show McDaniel hosted for three years before being elected to the state Senate in 2007.

Anti-Shariah activists have a new target in their sights: Crayola. Late last week the Pickens County (Ga.) Republican party posted a call to action on its website about a new promotion from the world’s leading crayon manufacturer, which had begun offering free Islamic-themed coloring pages in honor of Ramadan. Zut alors!

As I reported in a piece for the print magazine last summer, Florida has emerged as sort of the Thunderdome of the anti-Shariah movement, with a host of lawmakers at the municipal, state, and federal level working hand-in-hand with a dedicated group of activists to combat the invisble spectre of Islamic law.

By Tim Murphy and Adam Serwer (MotherJones)

Over the last four years, a die-hard cadre of activists and their allies in Congress have dragged the Republican Party into a fever swamp of Islamophobia and barely-concealed anti-Muslim bigotry.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the Egyptian-born Coptic Christian who appears to be behind the amateurish anti-Islam film that sparked violent protests at Western embassies in Arab and Muslim countries around the world last week, doesn’t exactly have a family-friendly background.

After spending the last year and a half holding hearings on “radicalization” within the American Muslim community, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) is preparing to hold hearings on his hearings.

– By Adam Serwer

Muslim religious law isn’t coming to the Lone Star State. But one Republican is on the lookout anyway.

Last June, while Yonas Fikre was visiting the United Arab Emirates, the Muslim American from Portland, Oregon was suddenly arrested and detained by Emirati security forces. For the next three months, Fikre claims, he was repeatedly interrogated and tortured.

—By Tim Murphy

Ex-jihadist Kamal Saleem tells tales of palling around with Arafat, Qaddafi, and Saddam. But his story has some big holes in it.