Link:

(That isn’t a picture of Hasan :-P)

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - The man accused of killing 13 people and wounding 29 at Fort Hood is able to talk, a hospital spokesman said Monday, but it’s unknown when investigators might take advantage of his improving health to press forward with their probe into the shooting spree.

Authorities say Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan fired off more than 100 rounds Thursday at a soldier processing center before civilian police shot him in the torso. He was taken into custody and eventually moved to an Army hospital in San Antonio, where he was in stable condition and able to talk, said Dewey Mitchell, a Brooke Army Medical Center spokesman.

Authorities continue to refer to Hasan, 39, as the only suspect in the shootings, but they won’t say when charges would be filed and have said they have not determined a motive. A spokesman for Army investigators did not immediately respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment Monday.

Sixteen victims remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds, and seven were in intensive care.

The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers praised Hasan as a hero.

The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the Fort Hood attack are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Awlaki said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to “follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

“Nidal Hassan (sic) is a hero,” Awlaki said. “He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

Two U.S. intelligence officials told The Associated Press the Web site was Awlaki’s. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence collection. Awlaki did not immediately respond to an attempt to contact him through the Web site.

Hasan’s family attended the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., where Awlaki was preaching in 2001. Hasan’s mother’s funeral was held at the mosque on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper, around the same time two 9/11 hijackers worshipped at the mosque and while Awlaki was preaching.

Awlaki is a native-born U.S. citizen who left the United States in 2002, eventually traveling to Yemen. He was released from a Yemeni jail last year and has since gone missing. He is on Yemen’s most wanted militant list, according to three Yemeni security officials.

The officials say Awlaki was arrested in 2006 with a small group of suspected al-Qaida militants in the capital San’a. They say he was released more than a year later after signing a pledge he will not break the law or leave the country. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Falls Church mosque is one of the largest on the East Coast, and thousands of worshippers attend prayers and services there every week.

Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director at Dar al Hijrah, said he did not know whether Hasan ever attended the mosque but confirmed that the Hasan family participated in services there. Abdul-Malik said the Hasans were not leaders at the mosque and their attendance was normal.

The London Telegraph first reported the potential link between Hasan and the mosque.

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday he wants Congress to determine whether the shootings constitute a terrorist attack and whether warning signs that Hasan was embracing an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology were missed.

Classmates who participated in a 2007-2008 master’s program at a military college told The Associated Press that they complained to faculty during the program about what they considered to be Hasan’s anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

“If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance,” Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He should have been gone.”

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Sunday it’s important for the country not to get caught up in speculation about Hasan’s Muslim faith, and he has instructed his commanders to be on the lookout for anti-Muslim reaction to the killings at the Texas post.

Casey, who appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” said evidence to this point shows that Hasan acted alone.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to attend a memorial service Tuesday honoring victims of the attack. Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the post commander, said the service will include a roll call of names of the dead and a 21-gun salute.

Fort Hood officials said the country’s largest military installation was moving forward with the business of soldiering. The building where Hasan allegedly opened fire remains a crime scene, but a processing center is scheduled to reopen Thursday in a new, temporary location.

Command Sgt. Maj. Arthur L. Coleman Jr. told The Associated Press on Monday that reopening the center is an important step in returning the Army post to normal.

Sgt. 1st Class Frank Minnie was in the processing center last week getting some health tests and immunizations in preparation for his deployment. Minnie said that even after the shootings, Fort Hood soldiers have the attitude that “the mission still goes on.”

“Everybody’s going to grieve a little bit. It hurts a lot because it’s one of your battle buddies, and someone lost a mom, dad, brother or sister,” said Minnie, 37, who served in Iraq in 2006. “But it doesn’t change my perspective of going to war. I’ve got a job to do.”

Wall Street Journal:

A senior U.S. senator on Sunday said the shootings at Fort Hood could have been a terrorist attack, and that he would launch a congressional investigation into whether the U.S. military could have prevented it.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who heads the Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said initial evidence suggested that the alleged shooter, Army Major Nidal Hasan, was a “self-radicalized, home-grown terrorist” who had turned to Islamic extremism while under personal stress.

Mr. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, had opened fire Thursday at a soldier processing center at Fort Hood, Tex., killing 13 and wounding 29 in the worst mass shooting on a military facility in the U.S.

Mr. Lieberman, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” cautioned that it remained too early to draw any definitive conclusions. He said his comments were based on “reports that we are receiving” about Mr. Hasan’s actions and comments.

The Army’s top officer, Gen. George Casey, wouldn’t rule out that the shooting was an act of terrorism, but cautioned against speculation at this point. “We all want to know what happened and what motivated the suspect, but we need to … let the investigation take its course,” he told ABC News’s “This Week.”

Mr. Lieberman said that if news reports were true that Mr. Hasan had turned to Islamic extremism, “the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most-destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.”

“We don’t know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act,” Mr. Lieberman added.

The lawmaker said he would begin a Senate investigation aimed at uncovering Mr. Hasan’s motives and asking “whether the Army missed warning signs.” He also called on the Pentagon to begin an independent investigation to determine whether “warning signs were missed.”

Mr. Lieberman said preliminary evidence suggested that Mr. Hasan had denounced the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “In the U.S. Army, this is not a matter of constitutional freedom of speech,” the senator said. “If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone.”

Gen. Casey said the Army was conducting an investigation to try to determine the motivation behind the shootings. “We in the Army will take a very hard look at ourselves and ask ourselves some very hard questions,” he said.

He expressed concern that speculation about the shooting could result in a “backlash” against Muslim soldiers. “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even-greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here,” he said. “We have a very diverse army. We have a very diverse society. And that gives us all strength.”

Gen. Casey said the Army has taken steps to help identify and help soldiers with mental health issues in an effort to prevent repeats of the shooting at Fort Hood. He said the Army encouraged members of the military to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress.

The Army has also partnered with the National Institute for Health on a $50 million study of suicide, and has a $125 million program aimed at giving soldiers and their family members the “resilient skills they need to make it through these tough times,” the general said.

ABC News:

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.

In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA).

Hoekstra said he is “absolutely furious” that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan’s attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News.

“This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies—not the CIA—have the lead,” CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said in a response to ABC News. ” Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is incorrect.”

Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.

In a blog posting early Monday titled “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing,” Awlaki calls Hasan a “hero” and a “man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

According to his site, Awlaki served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia.

The Associated Press reported Sunday that Major Hasan attended the Falls Church mosque when Awlaki was there.

The Telegraph of London reported that Awlaki had made contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers when he was in San Diego.

He denied any knowledge of the hijacking plot and was never charged with any crime. After an intensive investigation by the FBI , Awlaki moved to Yemen.

People who knew or worked with Hasan say he seemed to have gradually become more radical in his disapproval of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist.

“If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance,” Lieberman told Fox News Sunday.

Army Chief of Staff

A fellow Army doctor who studied with Hasan, Val Finell, told ABC News, “He would frequently say he was a Muslim first and an American second. And that came out in just about everything he did at the University.”

Finell said he and other Army doctors complained to superiors about Hasan’s statements.

“And we questioned how somebody could take an oath of office…be an officer in the military and swear allegiance to the constitution and to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic and have that type of conflict,” Finell told ABC News.

Politico:

Within minutes of Saturday’s historic House vote on health care reform, Republicans pronounced the political death of Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.), pointing to the vulnerable freshman congressman’s vote in favor of the bill.

And in the aftermath of the politically charged vote, Perriello wasn’t the only Democratic congressman whose fortunes were being reassessed. The GOP, which voted nearly in lock step against the measure, began crowing about the demise of various other vulnerable members and seized on the moment as a milestone in the path back to a House majority.

Other than Perriello — who was the target of 12 consecutive postvote GOP e-mails accusing him of breaking his promises — a handful of members immediately stood out for casting especially tough votes.

Three of them are junior legislators from highly competitive Ohio districts: first-term Reps. Mary Jo Kilroy and Steve Driehaus, and Rep. Zack Space, a second-term Democrat from a district that backed GOP presidential candidate John McCain in 2008.

Kilroy, who is facing a 2010 rematch against the Republican she narrowly defeated by 2,300 votes last year, took to the House floor Saturday morning to declare her support for the bill.

“This is a moral issue,” Kilroy said, in a speech that noted her own trials with multiple sclerosis.

Driehaus, like Kilroy a freshman Democrat who is facing a rematch with his 2008 opponent, former GOP Rep. Steve Chabot, voted for the health care bill only after it was stripped of funding for abortion.

“This isn’t about politics,” Driehaus told POLITICO before stepping into the chamber to cast his vote. “It’s about doing what’s right for the American people. I haven’t thought a minute politically what this might mean. This is about doing the right thing.”

For Perriello, Kilroy, Driehaus and Space, the health care bill represented their second exceptionally tough vote this year — the other was on the cap-and-trade bill — meaning they’ve essentially doubled down on the ambitious national Democratic agenda.

New York Democratic Rep. Bill Owens, who was sworn into office earlier this week after winning a closely watched special election, may also find that he sinks or swims with the national party next year.

Winning narrowly in what was originally a three-way contest, Owens voted for Saturday’s bill after holding an ambiguous position regarding a public option. It didn’t take the National Republican Congressional Committee long to pounce, saying his vote “could be the quickest broken promise in the history of Congress.”

On the whole, however, many Democrats sitting in politically marginal seats took the path of least resistance. Of the 39 Democrats who voted against the $1.2 trillion package, 31 hail from districts McCain won in 2008. And seven of the 10 Democrats rated as most endangered by The Cook Political Report also voted “no.”

Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr., a freshman Democrat from a Maryland district that McCain won with 58 percent of the vote and who is facing a prospective rematch with the GOP opponent he narrowly defeated, announced Friday that the legislation did not sufficiently rein in costs and that he wasn’t satisfied it was a “sustainable solution.”

Rep. Walt Minnick, a first-term Democrat from an Idaho district where McCain won 62 percent, said Friday he opposed the bill because it didn’t do enough to limit health care costs.

Alabama Rep. Bobby Bright, whose Montgomery-based district McCain won with 63 percent of the vote, said before the vote that he couldn’t support the bill because of cost concerns and a government-run public option.

“I’m voting for what the majority of what my constituents want,” Bright told POLITICO Saturday before stepping into the chamber to vote. “I consider myself a spokesman for my district.”

The lone Republican to vote for the bill, Louisiana Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, also had a compelling reason to break ranks — the freshman represents a heavily African-American, solidly Democratic district. The six House Democrats running for statewide office had their own unique political calculus to consider. For Reps. Neil Abercrombie, seeking the Hawaii governorship, and Joe Sestak, running for Senate in Pennsylvania, the votes were relatively painless — Abercrombie is running in a heavily Democratic state, and Sestak is challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in a Democratic primary where he is running to Specter’s left.

The four others split on the vote. For Rep. Charlie Melancon, a conservative Blue Dog Democrat running for Senate in Louisiana — where the national Democratic Party is no asset at the moment — a “no” vote was probably the price of admission for running statewide. Rep. Artur Davis, who is running for governor in conservative Alabama, found himself in a similar situation. As his Democratic colleagues whooped and hollered in celebration after passage, Davis was seen crossing his arms, his face expressionless.

In New Hampshire, Rep. Paul Hodes, the likely Democratic nominee for the open Senate seat, came down in favor of the vote — no easy decision, since he has come under fire on the issue after allegedly ducking town hall meetings this summer.

In Florida, Rep. Kendrick Meek, like Hodes the likely Democratic nominee in an open Senate contest next year, also voted “yes.”

Republicans made clear that Saturday’s vote would be a centerpiece issue in 2010.

“There will be a price to pay,” NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas told POLITICO before heading to the floor to vote. “This will be a gift that keeps on giving.”

Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, didn’t seem worried.

“Their constituents voted for them to make big decisions for the country,” Van Hollen said after the vote.