There were increasing signs that the inflamed rhetoric following the Paris attacks and the San Bernardino shootings were spurring hate crimes against Muslims across the country. Advocates tracking incidents reported a spike up, detailing incidents in which people were pulled from planes, had coffee thrown in their faces, and were physically assaulted and subjected to religious and ethnic slurs. The Huffington Post, which has been keeping a running tally of Islamophobic acts since the massacre in Paris, registered 59 as of today. 

In Washington, the headquarters of the Council on Islamic American Relations was evacuated when a white powdery substance was found in the mail. Tests determined that the substance was not harmful, but the FBI has opened an investigation. The leadership of CAIR said they receive threats daily.

A new poll out from former grantee the Public Religion Research Institute showed that nearly half of Americans surveyed worried that they or a member of their families would be a victim of terrorism (up from a third last November). Three-quarters of those surveyed identified terrorism as a critical issue, while only four in ten described illegal immigration in those terms.

Mark Zuckerberg inveighed against anti-Muslim bias and pledged that Muslims would always be welcome, and protected, on Facebook. And Muhammad Ali stepped forward to defend Islam.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amendment sponsored by ranking minority member Pat Leahy holding that “the United States must not bar individuals from entering into the United States based on their religion.” Advocates planned a Twitter campaign for Friday urging Congress to attach no policy riders to the budget bill.

Fallout from Donald Trump’s call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. continued to dominate coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign. The candidate’s planned trip to Israel was canceled in the wake of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s condemnation of Trump’s comments about Islam. The latest Gallup poll suggested that while Trump remains very well known, he is the least-liked candidate in the field. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal sounding found a majority of Americans opposed Trump’s proposal; Republicans were evenly split on the idea.

The press continued to explore the strategic implications of Trump’s controversial positions, noting that while Muslims represent just two percent of the American population, their numbers are concentrated in such electorally significant states as Florida, Ohio and Virginia, and the tenor of the campaign is taking a toll on the loyalties of Muslims heretofore inclined to vote Republican. Other reports showed Trump is attracting favorable attention among white supremacist leaders.

Advocates were at pains to point out that while Trump was rightly being roundly denounced for his views, he is not alone; a number of other Republican candidates had staked out harsh positions on Islam, mosque surveillance and religious screenings of refugees without attracting similar opprobrium.

The Pentagon proposed a set of new bases in Africa, Southwest Asia and the Middle East, according to a New York Times report, which said the bases could be used for gathering intelligence on ISIS and carrying out strikes against its ranks.

Connecticut became the first state in the country to ban the sale of firearms to people on the terrorism watch list.

OSF President Emeritus Aryeh Neier was quoted in a piece published in the Guardian’s Comment is Free section, saying “Trump heightens the danger of terrorist attacks in the United States.”  

Among other grantee activities:

#WeAreBetterThanThis took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to launch a campaign calling on elected officials and the press to “stop the spread of hate and division,” and pledging to “stand with any community that is targeted by hateful rhetoric and violence.” The group features a vast swath of OSF and OSPC grantees, including MoveOn.org, the Domestic Workers Alliance, United We Dream, the Center for Community Change, Demos and Color of Change.  Some funders, while applauding the effort, questioned the efficacy of the ad (expensive, preaching to the choir) and the messaging (desire for a stronger, more focused ask).

--ReThink Media helped popularize a social media campaign, #MuslimAmericanFaces, to celebrate lives and offer a humanizing counterweight to the indiscriminate hatred being directed at the community.  

--Grantee Linda Sarsour is among the national Muslim leaders supporting a Launchgood crowdfunding campaign, through which Muslims have raised $158,000 for victims of the San Bernardino shootings.

--Southern Poverty Law Center pointed out that several Republican presidential candidates are planning to speak at the “National Security Action Summit” in Las Vegas, hosted by Frank Gaffney, who has fanned the flames of Islamophobia over the years and whose flawed polling data was implicated in Trump’s stance against admitting Muslims into the country.   

--The Project on Government Secrecy promoted a recent Congressional Research Service report on legal tools to deter travel by terrorist suspects, and scrutinized gaps in the Defense Department’s capability to counter ISIS messaging—gaps Congress has moved to help close.

--The Brennan Center’s Faiza Patel published a piece in the New York Times’ Room for Debate online forum, arguing that we need to address actual attacks, and not whole religions, in assessing threats.

--At Human Rights First’s Human Rights Summit, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson gave a powerful response to Trump’s anti-Muslim stance, which will likely appear in print in the coming days.

--America’s Voice circulated an article in this Sunday’s New York Times magazine, documenting what it’s like to be deported.