The author of the book Case Closed, supporting the official theory that Lee Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy, resurfaced less than a week ago after quitting his Daily Beast job amid allegations of plagiarism.
In a letter to the New York Times dated August 23, 2010, Posner, who begins by stating "I represent Ahmed Wali Karzai," defends Hamid Karzai's brother against allegations in a New York Times' editorial to the effect that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in the opium trade and has ties to the CIA. 

The Huffington Post has an interesting article about Posner's letter.
It's worth noting that the Washington Post has also mentioned Karzai's brother's ties to the CIA. 

WASHINGTON POST (6-10-2010): "Some U.S. agencies, including the CIA, see Ahmed Wali Karzai as an asset, while others view him as a stumbling block who has allowed corruption to flourish on his watch."

The overwhelming majority of top-recommended diaries around here are in the form of criticism against or dissatisfaction with President Obama. In my view, Josh Marshall was not expecting Progressives to display this kind of independent thinking holding both Republicans AND Democrats accountable. There are two kinds of liberal bloggers: Independent and Party hacks. For example: Glenn Greenwald belongs in the first group. Josh Marshall in the latter. Very rarely will you see Josh criticize Obama. He trashes the Republican Party (good for him) but that's it He is basically a Democratic Party aparatchik; and as such, he no longer likes TPMCafe.
Here's how Marshall justifies his plan to shut down the very popular readers' section:

I'm now thinking that was probably the wrong approach. The atmosphere in the 'reader blogging' part of the site has simply become so toxic and aggrieved that I do not think we can justify continuing to maintain it.

Translation: Very few of you are kissing Obama's ass 24/7.

I will not read this joint again if TPMCafe disappears. Thanks.

U.S.A. doesn't like the Taliban and Iran. That's why you may remember many, many articles about an Iranian woman stoned to death in Iran for adultery, and the same kind of punishment by the Taliban.

But how many times have you seen opinion or news reports about this 2009 event?

Two Sri Lankan employees found guilty by Saudi Arabian judiciary for committing adultery have been sentenced to death by stoning states Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two Sri Lankans according to foreign ministry sources are a Sinhalese woman and a Muslim man from Sri Lanka. link

I am against Iran, the Taliban or anyone else stoning people to death for adultery (or any other crime), guilty or not. I just want the reader to know that the mainstream media doesn't really care. Their motive is to attack our rivals (deservingly) so we can have an easier time bombing them, while lending a deaf ear to the same crimes when our allies do it. This kind of selective reporting is counterproductive.

In regard to their views on the "Ground Zero mosque," whose position do you prefer? Conservatives' "get out of here" position? Howard Dean's "compromise" position (Muslims should be ready to leave if the other side gets too angry) or Ron Paul's position?

Paul released this statement a couple of days ago:

In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.

They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. . . Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam -- the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. . . .

The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. . . . . This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

<--Abraham Bolden

Today's bogus accusations against wikileaker Julian Assange are reminiscent to what was done to the first black Secret Service to ever work for a U.S. President: Abraham Bolden.

In 1963, imediately after expressing his intention to become a whislteblower by giving the Warren Comission information about the behavior displayed by the Secret Service the days prior to John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Bolden was arrested, charged with providing counterfeiters with Secret Service files, and serving a 6 year sentence. Now the good part.
:

Bolden, 29 years old at the time, believed that the agency was trying to stop him from blowing the whistle -- a move, he knew, that could destroy the Secret Service. After two trials -- the first ended with a hung jury -- Bolden was convicted and sent to prison. The counterfeiter, the agency's star witness, later recanted, saying during his own criminal trial that a U.S. attorney had coerced him into lying in Bolden's case. When pressed by a panel of judges about the counterfeiter's claim that the attorney had suborned his perjured testimony, the government prosecutor took the Fifth.

Researcher Jim DiEugenio adds the following details:

While in prison, his family endured a bombing of their home, setting fire to their garage, and a sniper shooting through their window.

Here is a Youtube video of an interview with Bolden conducted by Thom Hartmann (whom you may know especially if you listened to Air America Radio), Here's Bolden's website.
Bolden is still asking the government to clear his name to this day to no avail.

Yet some people inexplicably react with outrage to the thought that US government agencies may be behind smears against Julian Assange, which is set to release documents deemed by the Pentagon to be "potentially more explosive" than previous ones.

Is the Obama administration putting pressure on Sweden to manufacture a phony accusation against Assange? Sweden has no motive to be this angry. I hope no US agency (CIA, for example) is not behind this.link

Update: I equallly hope Mossad is not involved.

You  have been proved wrong, according to this breaking news.

Haaretz (8-19-2010): An Islamic publishing house in Egypt has published what is says is a "forged" version of the Christian Bible, angering the local Coptic Church, independent daily al-Masry al-Youm reported Thursday.

The owner of the Islamic Enlightenment Publishing House, Abuislam Abdullah, wrote in the introduction that the reason behind the book's publication was to prove that there are several versions of the bible and that Christians had forged theirs.

Abdullah claims that the version he published was written before the Book of Genesis, the Christian Old Testament.

The Coptic Church says it is extremely offended by the publication of this book, and is considering filing a complaint with Egypt's Attorney General, al-Masry al-Youm reported.

I wouldn't put it past them, in light of their attempt to cover up the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun (by killing Galileo), the child abuse scandal and others. I plan to read the book in the future.

In a top-recommended TPM diary, the writer makes the argument that the Left has been unfair in its criticism of President Barack Obama. He/she bases this argument on a book by mainstream pundit Jonathan Alter, who wouldn't have gotten unbridled access to Obama and his inner circle had he not been pre-determined to make the President look fabulous.

What the diarist does not reveal is this journalist's history. Alter has made a habit of sucking up to the powerful (at least while they have high job approval and are considered Cool). in 2001 Alter kissed Bush/Cheney's ass by endorsing torture, rendition to countries that torture and warrant-less wiretapping, in the name of National Security:

Time to Think about Torture November 2001 by Jonathan Alter

Excerpts:

-"In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to... torture."

-"Couldn't we at least subject them to psychological torture, like tapes of dying rabbits or high-decibel rap? (The military has done that in Panama and elsewhere.) How about truth serum, administered with a mandatory IV? Or deportation to Saudi Arabia, land of beheadings?"

-"Fortunately, the new law stops short of threatening basic rights like free speech, which is essential in wartime to hold the government accountable. The bill makes it easier to wiretap (under the old rules, you had to get a warrant for each individual phone, an anachronism in a cellular age), easier to detain immigrants who won't talk and easier to follow money through the international laundering process."

-"Short of physical torture, there's always sodium pentothal ("truth serum"). The FBI is eager to try it, and deserves the chance."

-"And we'll have to think about transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies, even if that's hypocritical. Nobody said this was going to be pretty."

Say what! "even a liberal" would consider torture?...I didn't see Paul Krugman or Markos endorsing any of these these things, despite the WTC having been attacked.

Glenn Greenwald couldn't have described Alter better:

GREENWALD (JUNE, 2010): Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- the first known mainstream pundit to explicitly call for torture in the wake of the 9/11 attack and one of the creepiest Obama loyalists around -- has been running around the country promoting his book by spouting "the typical warmed over Village sentiments, particularly as it relates to liberal critics of the President.":

Some have been arguing that Obama is oh-so-courageous to have said that Muslims have the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero. But his move wasn't risky. A healthy majority thinks the same, as Nate Silver argues.

Obama is still a timid calculating Left-hating Centrist.

-Neil Armstrong.
-Truthseeker77.

I welcome President Obama's announcement that he will not hesitate in bringing our trops home from Iraq. I hope this is not an attempt to free up money and resources so we can replace Iraq with iran,

I'll give Obama the benefit of the doubt for now. Kudos.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/30/AR2010073005420.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR

Rove: "Mr. Obama has acted impressively so far on Afghanistan. He changed strategy based on facts on the ground, increased our troops by tens of thousands, and picked exactly the right man to lead our military into battle."

No comment.

Afghans are saying that a recent NATO attack killed 52 civilians or so. Meanwhile, NATO (euphemism for United States of America) denies civilians were killed at all.

You would think that after denying earlier this year that our military killed pregnant women in Afghanistan --and trying to cover-up the killings by removing bullets from their bodies-- the United States Government would try to redeem itself by admitting these kinds of atrocities.

NEW YORK TIMES (April 4, 2010)

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

I've noticed a pattern: Whenever Afghan locals say A and our military say B, A turns out to be true and B turns out to be Bullshit. Watch. 3 or 6 months from now we will learn that indeed, these civilians were killed. Put it in the bank. And our nation will be seen as a bullying pack of imperialist liars again.

I am not necessarily against the war, on two conditions: 1) If we have information on real terrorists, let's kill that terrorist without killing women and children. 2) Let's stop feeding the world bullshit.

Finally, The Guardian (UK) has a photograph showing "Haji Abdul Ghafar with his son Agha Shereen, left, who suffered a broken leg and nose in the alleged Nato attack, and nephew Abdul Jabar who is suffering from severe shock,"