CAIR has had multiple members convicted of supporting terrorists. This isn't racism. Its fact. They support Hezbolla and Hamas, and have been condemned by other members of the American Muslim community for it. Additionally, several of their members have been found to be either terrorists, or convicted of supporting terrorists. Obviously an organization can't be responsible for the behavior of all of its members, but at the same time, when you have a founding member of a division funneling money to Hamas for a decade, your civil-rights coordinator stockpiling AK-47s, and your director of community relations convicted of supporting terrorists, something has gone a little wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critic...s#CAIR.27s_support_of_terrorist_organizations
As for the Dubai ports deal - the company involved was a state-owned company. That meant the ports would be under the ownership of another nation. That nation was one of the last nations to break off relations with the Taliban and has been listed as a good friend of Hamas. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that they're Al Qaeda supporters, but it doesn't mean we just hand over our ports to them either.
Racism is illogical hatred based on race. It is not illogical to look at countries or organizations that have had shady dealings or shady members, and treat them as shady. Racism would be saying "oh, a bunch of CAIR members supported terrorists, therefore all Muslims support terrorists" (actually it would be closer to religious bigotry, but w/e). The point being, it isn't illogical hatred to say "hmm. Group X has a lot of members who have been proven to support terrorists. I wonder if other members of the group support terrorists."
As for Mr. Ellison, he has definately had some dealings with CAIR. The thing is, on the whole, I think CAIR has more idealistic members who are completely innocent of any terrorists dealings whatsoever than they do people who actually support terrorists. The problem is, they have an 'us against them' mentality. That is, they are not policing their own members, because 'they support us!' I'm not talking about an opinion-based witch hunt, I am talking about simple checks like making sure your money is going where its supposed to be going and not to, say, terrorists.
While I am unsure how good of a congressman Mr. Ellison make, there's a lot of people I can say that about and I think he deserves a shot.