MARTIN: I know, I know, I know.

 CORKER: So but, what I am saying. But obviously, what happens, the thing that is different, if I’m running in a Republican primary, you know obviously you end up being constrained. But, I just, if you could, I’m not asking any different than I have the entire 10 years and eight months that I have been in office. You know, and one of the reasons, the main reason was the statement that I made. You know, I told people, I didn’t intend to serve more than two terms, that’s been a really big drag on me.

 But in addition to that, the other part of our statement was true that the next 15 months we believe to be the most important time of our service and to be constrained by looking over your shoulder with some winger running against you, you know, let’s face it that impedes your ability to serve. So I just — again, I haven’t like changed course I just don’t have the worry.

 I actually can continue over the next 15 months being the same senator that I’ve been. So, sure, I mean the president concerns me. I mean there’s no question. And, I like him. O.K., I enjoyed playing golf with him, you know, he’s a very courteous kind person. It’s not that I dislike him.

 MARTIN: Right.

 CORKER: I know for a fact that every single day at the White House it’s a situation of trying to contain him.

 MARTIN: Yeah.

 CORKER: Look, you know that. It’s not like —

 MARTIN: Yes, you’re right.

 CORKER: I mean, you’ve talked to enough people to know that that’s just a fact. So, thankfully we’ve got some very good people there. At least today, we’ve got some very good people there and they have been able to push back against his worst instincts.

 MARTIN: Yeah.

 CORKER: But yes, I mean, you know, yes. He concerns me. I mean he would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation. But a lot people that — Let me put it this way, I think that — So I’ll just stop there. Sure, I mean, do I want him to be successful? Absolutely.

 MARTIN: Let me just —

 CORKER: Have we worked with him. Are you still here?

 MARTIN: Yes, sir. I’m here, I’m here. Yes, sir. I’m here, I can hear you. ||||| ADVERTISEMENT

 Man of the hour! Bob Corker, retiring Republican senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has been earning Twitter plaudits for his sorties against President Trump. He has called the president a toddler on Twitter (134,000 retweets and counting!) and told The New York Times that the president's instability might well put America "on the path to World War III."

 In the scripted kabuki theater of American politics, the respected Republican statesman who calls out the president of his own party as reckless or extreme is a stock character, who must always receive loud calls of adulation from the chorus of the press. Bravo!

 But why is it, exactly, that anyone should respect Bob Corker's opinion about the president? Should it be more, or less, respected than his endorsement of that same irresponsible toddler for the presidency? His campaign-era praise for the foreign policy thinking of the man who he now warns risks World War III? His jockeying for a spot on the ticket with the toddler? His dismissal of those who, within the Republican Party, were saying exactly the same things, you know, back when something could have been done about it?

 There has been a very strong correlation between Bob Corker's public comments on Donald Trump and Bob Corker's perceived short-term interests, and his new about-face is no exception. He only started "uncorking" (get it?) about Trump once he decided not to run for re-election in a state that Trump carried by 25 points. He has calibrated his retirement announcement to encourage speculation about a 2020 bid, for which his recent comments are clearly useful in positioning him as an establishment primary challenge to Trump. What is it, exactly, that anyone should respect here?

 For the record, I am not engaging in "whataboutism." I absolutely agree with Corker that the president of the United States behaves like a toddler and in other ways that are grave and alarming. The difference is that I haven't spent the past year obfuscating about that for political gain.

 It's worth expressing some moral outrage about that. Corker was an instrumental part of a Republican establishment that foreswore every opportunity to stop Trump during the campaign for the sake of short-term political gain: refusing to unite behind an anti-Trump candidate, quashing dissent in the run-up to the convention, sucking away the oxygen that might have enabled a non-quixotic third-party conservative bid, comforting themselves with notions that the GOP could "run the country from Congress" and so it was okay to put a "toddler" in charge of America's nuclear arsenal. Edmund Burke was right: All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. The Bob Corkers of the world bear more responsibility for Donald Trump's election than the Stephen Bannons and Sean Hannitys. Corker's "toddler" comment is damning — but less so for Trump (it's not exactly a scoop) than for Corker himself. If Trump is such a toddler, why did Corker enable his rise in the first place?

 But there is also an important, even fundamental, political point, here. As Talleyrand, that French geopolitical master whom foreign policy hands should be able to quote, would say, "C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute." ("It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder.") It is well-understood that the United States, and the West in general, is in the grips of a populist insurgency that often has noxious ideas and even more often lacks the competence to turn even its good ideas into policy. It is less well-understood that a main driver of this insurgency's strength is the intellectual and even, arguably, moral bankruptcy of too many in our governing elites, who often speak the language of the common good but seem to believe in little more than that the common good always intersects with their own class interest and that they have a natural right to rule. Bob Corker's sudden rediscovery of principle right at the moment when it stops being risky politically is a darkly comical symbol of this contemptible attitude.

 Donald Trump became president at least in part because large swathes of Republican voters feel screwed by their party, and they feel this way because they are, well, correct. During his Senate tenure, Bob Corker's notable stances on economic policy include voting for Wall Street bailouts, support for a flat tax, and attacks on Social Security and Medicare.

 Fixing a problem requires first understanding it. Trump's personal behavior is contemptible and alarming, but the reason why someone like Trump could get into the White House in the first place, and the way to prevent a new Trump once this one is out one way or another, is to understand how and why the establishment that enabled his rise and the rise of his movement failed. There has been no hint that Bob Corker or those of his establishment ilk understand any of this, or plan to do anything about it other than continue to behave like the stereotype of the kind of establishment Republican that drove a once-proud party (and thence, the world) into the hands of a fool.

 Trump's obvious psychological unfitness for his office, important though it is, is also a convenient way to distract from the fundamental failures of the Republican establishment that made him possible. But on this subject Bob Corker has been utterly silent. I would rather hand the nuclear button to Bob Corker than Donald Trump, but if the difference between a toddler and a man is that the latter is capable to self-reflect and then take responsibility for his own actions, then the difference between these two becomes blurred.

 Bob Corker isn't an opponent of Donald Trump. He is his enabler. ||||| Republicans woke up Columbus Day morning to the sights and sounds of the wheels coming off their midterm-election bus and their legislative jalopy. First came a widely publicized war of words between President Trump and the prominent Republican senator, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker. Then came a Bloomberg News story by Jennifer Jacobs and Bill Allison laying out Steve Bannon’s intention to back challengers to most of the GOP senators seeking re-election next year.

 The Trump-Corker contretemps began last week when the Tennessee lawmaker, who had been a top contender to be Trump’s running mate as well as secretary of State, took an obvious shot at the president when he told reporters that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly “are those people that help separate our country from chaos.” Corker amplified his criticism on Fox News Sunday, charging that Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”

 The tweet wars then began in earnest. Trump fired back that Corker “didn’t have the guts” to run for re-election, and Corker reponded by saying, “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.” After adding that the former reality television star was “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something,” Corker concluded that “he concerns me,” and it should “concern anyone who cares about our nation.”

 In a New York Times interview later Sunday, this in a phone call with Jonathan Martin and Mark Landler, Corker said that “I know for a fact that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.” Trump fired up his twitter gatling gun and wrote that “Bob Corker gave us the Iran Deal, & that’s about it. We need HealthCare, we need Tax Cuts/Reform, we need people that can get the job done!”

 While Trump has been highly critical of the Republican-led Congress in general, and the Senate Republican leadership in particular, for their failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, his exchange with Corker went to a darker place. Corker did what a lot of Republican leaders have been tempted to do — question the president’s maturity and stability, and speculate how that might affect his performance as commander-in-chief.

 Over the last year Trump has singled out for criticism two endangered GOP incumbents up for re-election this year, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dean Heller of Nevada. He also has engaged in an on-going feud with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. If Trump is to get anything done legislatively without having to depend on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, he must have the support of Corker, McConnell, Flake, and Heller. The opportunities to align with Schumer and Pelosi are likely to be few and far between.

 Citing three sources “familiar with his plans,” the Bloomberg News article reported that Bannon “plans to support as many as 15 Republican Senate candidates in 2018, including several challengers to incumbents. He’ll support only candidates who agree to two conditions: They will vote against McConnell as majority leader, and they will vote to end senators’ ability to block legislation by filibustering. Bloomberg went on to say that only Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is safe because he’s considered sufficiently conservative and seen to be moving toward the more populist approach Bannon favors.

 Bannon has already scored a victory in Alabama by successfully backing former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore against a Luther Strange, a senator appointed by the GOP establishment. The Bloomberg piece reported that Bannon was targeting incumbents Flake, Heller, Nebraska’s Deb Fischer, Wyoming’s John Barrasso, and Utah’s Orrin Hatch, and the New York Times reported on Sunday that another Bannon favorite, Erik Prince, founder of the controversial security firm Blackwater, was considering a challenge to Barrasso. In the event that Sen. John McCain leaves office early — he is undergoing treatment for a virulent form of brain cancer — Bannon has indicated a preference for Paul Gosar, a state representative and tea party activist. In the race to replace Corker, Bannon intends to support Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

 Almost any conversation with congressional Republicans starts and ends with the need to cut taxes, now that tax reform no longer seems possible. Having failed to pass any legislation of real significance this year, and with a president who carries little weight on Capitol Hill, Republicans desperately need to put some points on the board. They are banking on passing a tax cut that’s meaningful, that voters can see, feel, and touch. If they pass something insufficiently large, the political payoff will be commensurately small.

 With 25 Democratic Senate seats up next year, ten in states Trump carried, five in states the former real estate developer won by 19 points or more, this should be a year for the GOP to expand its current narrow 52-48 majority. Under different circumstances, the GOP could hope to boost their Senate numbers by four to seven seats, perhaps even reaching the magic 60-seat Senate super-majority level that could break filibusters on party line votes. But given their current disarray, Republicans will need to fight hard to gain any new seats, and losing one or two of their own seats would put their majority in jeopardy.

 The stakes are even higher in the House where their majority status is in real danger. The party needs to sublimate its divisions, get mainstream Republicans to the polls, and persuade the Trump base to cast ballot for non-Trump Republicans. That’s a tall order. And it’s why last week’s news reduced the odds of the GOP retaining its majority from a good bet to even money.

 Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously characterized Erik Prince’s political plans. He is considering a run against John Barrasso of Wyoming. ||||| The Failing @ nytimes set Liddle' Bob Corker up by recording his conversation. Was made to sound a fool, and that's what I am dealing with! ||||| Donald Trump’s weekend Twitter spat with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker is a familiar story: The President is a Party of One for whom personal loyalty is the only test. He isn’t going to change, so the meaningful question is how Republicans should navigate his periodic explosions to help the country and maintain their majorities in Congress.

 Mr. Trump unleashed his tirade because he is still sore that Mr. Corker said this summer that the President hadn’t shown the stability or competence to be successful. The two later had... ||||| Sen. Bob Corker, the retiring Republican chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, has engaged in a heated back-and-forth with Trump for days now, including in an interview with The New York Times where he said that he feared Trump was steering the nation "on the path to World War III."

 The President, a politician whose mantra has long been to hit back harder than someone hits him, is now treating Corker like he did his primary opponents: By giving him a nickname.

 "The Failing @nytimes set Liddle' Bob Corker up by recording his conversation," Trump tweeted on Tuesday. "Was made to sound a fool, and that's what I am dealing with!"

 "So have at it," Corker told the reporter. "I understand we're on the record. I don't like normally talking to you on the record -- I'm kidding you -- but I will."

 Asked about Corker's comments, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters, "Sen. Corker is certainly entitled to his own opinion, but he's not entitled to his own facts."

 "The facts certainly don't lie, the President has certainly been very successful," she continued.

 Asked if Corker should resign, Sanders said that decision is not for the White House to make. "I think that's a decision for Sen. Corker and the people of Tennessee," Sanders said.

 Trump continued his feud with Corker during a Tuesday meeting with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, pushing back on the senator's statement that Trump is putting the United States on a path toward World War III.

 "We were on the wrong path before. All you have to do is take a look," he said when asked if Corker was right. "Now we're on the right path."

 Trump labeling Corker "liddle" is a throwback to the 2016 campaign, when he gave Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, then a presidential candidate himself, the same moniker.

 "I'm the writer," Trump told New York magazine in 2016. "Let me start with Little Marco. He just looked like Little Marco to me. And it's not Little. It's Liddle. L-I-D-D-L-E. And it's not L-Y-I-N-G Ted Cruz. It's L-Y-I-N apostrophe. Ted's a liar, so that was easy."

 The feud between Corker and Trump had escalated this weekend when the President tweeted that the outgoing senator "begged" for his endorsement before declining to run for re-election.

 "He also wanted to be Secretary of State, I said 'NO THANKS.' He is also largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal," Trump tweeted. "Hence, I would fully expect Corker to be a negative voice and stand in the way of our great agenda. Didn't have the guts to run!"

 Todd Womack, Corker's chief of staff, denied the claim later in the day.

 "The President called Senator Corker on Monday afternoon and asked him to reconsider his decision not to seek re-election and reaffirmed that he would have endorsed him, as he has said many times," Womack said in a statement.

 Corker, in the New York Times interview, said that Trump is acting "like he's doing 'The Apprentice' or something," and added that he could set the nation "on the path to World War III."

 The comment comes a week after Corker jabbed Trump, stating that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly "help separate our country from chaos."

 The clash between Corker and Trump highlights fraying relations between the President and the men and women in Congress who the White House needs to deliver on the agenda Trump ran on. Trump has yet to score a signature legislative victory, a black mark on his record given his party controls both the Senate and House.

 Trump said Tuesday that he didn't think his feud with Corker would imperil his tax cut plan.

 "I don't think so. I don't think so at all," he said. "I think we are well on our way."

 Corker's comments have already infuriated Trump's base. Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist who was let go from the White House earlier this year, called on the senator to resign in response. ||||| Should I have outed the people who said these things—or should the countless other press people who have heard similar views? No: Reporters do have to keep confidences, and I conveyed the substance of this case as best I could during the Trump Time Capsule series through the election. Moreover, it’s not clear that “concerns�? like these would have changed anyone’s mind. During the campaign, most of Trump’s fallen rivals blasted him in exceptional terms—before truckling to support him against Hillary Clinton. One of the most remarkable illustrations was Senator Ted Cruz’s extended denunciation of Trump as a “pathological liar�? just before Trump clinched the nomination. Of course Cruz turned around to support him in the general election and has cast nearly all his Senate votes (94 percent) in alignment with Trump. Meanwhile, it’s not even the lead news of the week that Trump’s own secretary of state has half-heartedly non-denied Stephanie Ruhle’s report on NBC that he called Trump a “fucking moron.�?

 Now that Bob Corker, one-time supporter of Trump, has taken the commendable step of going public, what’s next?

 * * *

 For reporters, there is a logical extension from the opening Corker has given. Get Mitch McConnell, get Paul Ryan, get John Thune and John Barrasso and John Cornyn, get Kevin McCarthy, get every Republican in a position of responsibility to answer: Do you agree with your colleague that Donald Trump is a danger to the country and the world? Who’s right here: Your comrade who is the veteran chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee? Or a president who can’t stop tweet-threatening “Little Rocket Man�?? And what about Corker’s claim that the White House is a daily battleground to keep the incumbent under control? Are you going to call one of your own a liar? Or is he right about Trump?

 They won’t answer. Knowing how not to answer comes as second nature. More smoothly than Rex Tillerson, they will decline to get into the “silly stuff.�? But they should be put on the spot and made to take a stand. Especially the ones who will either face the voters soon—or who are deciding, as Corker did recently, whether that’s even worth it.

 (To be clear: every reporter already knows these are the questions to ask, and overall the resilience of the press is one of the heartening aspects of this disheartening era. I’m just spelling out what to look for as day breaks and senators get within reporters’ range.)

 For congressional Republicans, this is your moment in history’s eye. One of your colleagues, who has chosen not to run for office again, and who also was the object of one of Trump’s intemperate attacks this morning, has decided that he might as well tell the truth. It turns out that this is often the right way to go! As the (slightly altered) line from Mark Twain put it, by telling the truth you will gratify some people and astonish the rest. Perhaps Corker’s motivations are not the purest or most glorious. He was nice to Trump last year, when Corker was in the mentioning-cloud as a possible secretary of state, and he was part of the “respectable�? Republicans who disastrous enabled Trump. Corker’s retorts today followed personal attacks from Trump. Still, he’s doing more than his colleagues have. And Corker has moved toward a better place for himself in the annals of Senate history than he would have had only 24 hours ago. |||||

Write a summary.

– President Trump's feud with Republican Sen. Bob Corker is apparently still on, based on the new nickname the president bestowed upon Corker Tuesday morning. "The Failing @nytimes set Liddle' Bob Corker up by recording his conversation," Trump tweeted. "Was made to sound a fool, and that's what I am dealing with!" Trump was referring to the interview Corker gave to the New York Times in which the senator likened the Trump White House to a "reality show" and suggested that reckless comments from the president could lead to World War III. Developments: Audio, transcript: The Times released excerpts from the interview, as well as audio here. It's not clear what Trump meant in saying that the newspaper set up Corker, but the transcript makes clear that Corker knew he was on the record, notes CNN. He also knew the call was being recorded, telling the reporter that his staff was recording it, "and I hope you are, too." GOP trouble: At the National Journal, political analyst Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report writes that Trump went to a "darker place" in his Corker criticism, and he now thinks the GOP majority is in jeopardy not only in the Senate but in the House. "The party needs to sublimate its divisions, get mainstream Republicans to the polls, and persuade the Trump base to cast ballot for non-Trump Republicans," he writes. "That's a tall order. And it's why last week's news reduced the odds of the GOP retaining its majority from a good bet to even money." Ulterior motives? Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry of the Week calls Corker a hypocrite for his sudden public turn on the president and suggests that the retiring senator is positioning himself to be an "establishment" primary challenger to the president in the 2020 election. Now what? James Fallows at the Atlantic writes that if Corker truly believes Trump might blunder his way into World War III, he has an obligation to "do something about it" by providing a crucial check on Trump's actions through his position as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. "Talk is better than nothing, but action is what counts." WSJ weighs in: The conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal thinks Corker spoke the truth about the president's "lack of discipline, short fuse, narcissism and habit of treating even foreign heads of state as if they are Rosie O'Donnell," and it hopes other top Republicans follow Corker's lead because it might actually help. Little reaction: NBC News rounds up reaction from top Republicans to Corker's statements about the president and finds "silence or a shrug." A typical sentiment, from Marco Rubio: "You'll have to ask Sen. Corker what led him to make that statement. I haven't made that statement." Trump's new criticism comes just a week before a Senate vote important to Trump's tax plan, notes the New York Times.


Article:
On late Friday, The Washington Post broke the explosive story that the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that Russians intervened in the U.S. election to help Donald Trump win. This morning, President-elect Donald Trump was up tweeting indignantly—about the Celebrity Apprentice.

 Trump hasn’t held a press conference in months and instead uses Twitter to issue statements and go after critics. Media analysts have long noted that Trump will go off on unrelated tweet storms after a major, and potentially damaging, news story breaks about him. For example, after Donald Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle a Trump University fraud lawsuit, Trump tweeted attacks on the cast of the Broadway show, Hamilton. Distracting people from Trump’s fraud settlement was exactly the point, argued Jack Shafer in a Politico article entitled “Stop being Trump’s Twitter fool.”

 This morning would seem to be another case in point. Yes, it was big news when Variety disclosed Thursday that Trump would continue to serve as executive producer of NBC’s reality-TV show and collect probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that was completely eclipsed by the bombshell report that Russia had an espionage operation to get Donald Trump elected president. Trump has been famously friendly to Russia’s strongman leader Vladimir Putin, calling him a better leader than President Obama, and Russia apparently concluded that Trump would more likely to relax economic sanctions than would Hillary Clinton.

 The report of Russia’s meddling also included the revelation that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell played a key role in keeping the explosive information under wraps during the election. According to The Post, which cited unnamed sources, McConnell voiced doubts about U.S. intelligence and threatened to publicly accuse the Obama administration of partisan politics if the White House challenged the Russians publicly.

 After the election, Trump chose McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao to be secretary of transportation. Chao served as secretary of labor in George W. Bush administration. Her appointment requires approval by Congress; McConnell has rejected calls to recuse himself from the confirmation process.

 Even more explosive, the New York Times reported that intelligence agencies have “high confidence” that Russians hacked the Republican National Committee but “conspicuously released no documents” related to Republicans. Which raises the disturbing question: Is Russia holding onto these materials to use as leverage, perhaps over the Trump administration?

 Julian Assange of Wikileaks, which published the hacked Clinton emails, has denied that it received the materials from the Russian government. Russia also has denied the allegations.

 The latest news, however, immediately set off a firestorm. Evan McMullin, a former CIA agent who was a Republican presidential candidate, tweeted:

 Republican leaders knew Russia was undermining our democracy during the election and they chose to ignore it. — Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) December 10, 2016

 Donald Trump’s team issued a brief, stunning statement Friday—attacking the CIA’s credibility. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the transition team said in an unsigned statement. “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.'” (Note: Trump’s electoral victory was no landslide; he actually won by one of the slimmest margins in U.S. history.)

 And here’s what Trump said on Twitter:

 Reports by @CNN that I will be working on The Apprentice during my Presidency, even part time, are ridiculous & untrue – FAKE NEWS! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2016

 I have NOTHING to do with The Apprentice except for fact that I conceived it with Mark B & have a big stake in it. Will devote ZERO TIME! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2016

 (I won’t be Trump’s Twitter fool by explaining The Apprentice contretemps. You can read about it here and here. )

 Trump has said he’ll have a press conference on December 15th. It would be his first since July 27th. At the last conference, he told reporters that he hoped Russian intelligence agencies had hacked Hillary Clinton’s emails and would publish whatever they found. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” ||||| Make no mistake, yesterday’s Washington Post revelation that the CIA has concluded that Russia was actively trying to elect Donald Trump as opposed to just “meddling with” the election, is a nuclear bombshell. And if the Post piece is Hiroshima, then today’s New York Times story, which adds the detail that Russian actors also hacked email accounts at the Republican National Committee but did not release those publicly as they did Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails, is Nagasaki.

 Hyperbole? Think again. A foreign government may have determined the outcome of a presidential election. And not Canada or Costa Rica, but Russia: the United States’ chief historic adversary and an oligarchy ruled by a tyrant who has systematically taken away rights. Bombshells don’t come much bigger.

 Oh, wait; yes they do. On top of all the above, leaders of one of our two political parties—I’ll let you hazard a guess as to which one—argued against letting the American public know about all this before the election, reportedly saying it would be too partisan. That’s not hardball politics. That’s a hair’s breath away from treason.

 So yes, this is major. But let’s catch our breath. We don’t know yet for a fact that these allegations are true. Both stories came from anonymous intelligence community sources, and in all such cases, the sources need to be considered. So the Obama administration and the CIA should put this information out there publicly.

 And if the evidence is persuasive, what next?

 It’s hard to say. It will be easy to prove to all but the most purblind partisans that Russia had the intent of electing Trump. But it will be much more difficult to prove that Russia did in fact elect Trump. That may never be provable. Unless evidence emerges that Russia specifically altered vote counts, Republicans will always be able to say it was something else and turn it back on Hillary.

 Good luck getting Republicans to agree on anything here. Mitch McConnell? Please. He’s the one who said, at a hush-hush meeting back in September where administration officials urged that bipartisan group of 12 legislators go public with concerns about Russian interference in the election, that he would not participate and that if Democrats did so, he would tell the American people this was just partisan politics.

 Think that through. McConnell, according to the Post story, showed no concern about the truth of the allegations. And bear this nugget in mind: This was not Barack Obama trying to persuade him to join in this bipartisan effort. This was Lisa Monaco, the president’s counterterrorism adviser; and Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security secretary; and FBI Director James Comey . McConnell told Comey, in essence, to go take a jump in the lake. McConnell was interested only in party, not at all in country. That’s not treason, but it sure isn’t patriotism.

 This obviously cries out for hearings and an investigation, or a few of them. If we lived in a different universe, we’d ideally have a bipartisan investigation by Congress that was honest and serious and was able to be finished or at least to reach decent conclusions before the Electoral College votes on December 19.

 But that will not happen. Republicans will make the Democrats do all the lifting here and then will cry that they’re being partisan and it’s just sour grapes. (Republican Senator John Cornyn tweeted , All this 'news' of Russian hacking: it has been going on for years. Serious, but hardly news.") But this is a genuine crisis. The guy who got 2.8 million fewer votes to begin with, and won because he took three states by less than 1 percent may have made it over the finish line, limping as he was, with a push from Vladimir Putin.

 I know I often say “imagine if Hillary had done this,” but in this case, it’s not a mere hypothetical. Imagine the situation were reversed, and this lurid right-wing dystopic fantasy were playing out before our eyes—remembering, I should note, that Trump earlier in the campaign encouraged Russia to do more hacking of Clinton! What would the Republicans be doing? A few things, I think:

 •They’d certainly be calling the election illegitimate and would declare Clinton an illegitimate president.

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 •They’d call on the electors to seat Trump, citing—and properly, by the way—the Founders’ view that electors existed for precisely this purpose.

 •Noting that Clinton had (in this hypothetical) earlier egged Russia on, they would be accusing Clinton of being an agent of a foreign government; that is, of treason.

 •They’d be so legally brilliant and diabolical that it’s far beyond my capacity even to imagine.

 And what would rank-and-file conservatives be doing? Hard-shell Trumpists? Richard Spencer? The good folks at Stormfront?

 What should the Democrats do? I’m not exactly sure. Demand the release of the information. Demand a real investigation, one that can be completed by Dec. 19, when the electors meet. Pin McConnell’s ears to the wall in every way they can think of, discredit him as much as possible. Liberals groups need to agitate from the outside. The media needs to get the message that conservatives aren’t the only people who get pissed off.

 In a word: Fight. Like hell. Obama too. He’s been doing his job—ensuring the peaceful transition of power. But that is just a custom. He didn’t swear an oath to it. He did however swear an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. That comes first.

 Liberals often accuse Democrats of bringing a knife to a gun fight. For this one, it’s time to haul out the bazooka. ||||| President Barack Obama seems to fear that president-elect Donald Trump will ignore US intelligence that Russia used cyber tools to influence the result of the Nov. 8 election. And with good reason: Trump has displayed intense skepticism of what US intelligence agencies regard as a profound risk to the American electoral system.

 So Obama is attempting to box Trump in politically—ordering a definitive report on Russia’s cyber-intrusions before he leaves office in six weeks.

 In a new briefing to key members of Congress last week, the CIA advanced its long-held conclusion that Russia conducted cyber-intrusions and disseminated fake news in order to disrupt the presidential election. In its latest assessment, the CIA said the attacks were not intended solely to disrupt the election, but specifically to skew it to Trump’s advantage, according to the Washington Post. The newspaper quotes a US official who was in the congressional briefing as saying “It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected.”

 The CIA assessment aligns with the discovery of similar cyber-attacks across Europe, including the hacking of sensitive servers, as well as information warfare. In recent days, intelligence officials in both the UK and Germany have said that Russia’s cyber warfare imperils their respective democracies. On Dec. 10, Nicholas Burns, one of the most respected former diplomats in the US, tweeted that the threat is sweeping.

 Trump’s team, however, has brushed off the new reports as the work of a tarnished intelligence community. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again,’” the statement read.

 In an interview with Time magazine, Trump had voiced similar sarcasm about the cyberattacks. “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey,” he said. “I believe that it could have been Russia and it could have been any one of many other people. Sources or even individuals.”

 Hence Obama’s worry. Broadly speaking, Trump is setting an early trend of treating information he doesn’t like as politicization. For instance, his transition team has suggested that the Energy Information Administration, the much-respected data division of the US Department of Energy, is politicizing its data to support Obama’s climate change agenda. And he is accusing the 17 US intelligence agencies—one of the baselines of US foreign policy—of doctoring the hacking analysis to tarnish him and his presidency. The mindset suggests another dimension to Trump’s penchant for operating in an alternate universe of facts.

 With that as the backdrop, Obama is racing against the clock to get the facts on Russia out there prior to Trump’s inauguration.

 There is bipartisan support in Congress for action against Russia. In separate statements, Republican senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer both called for investigations into the hacking. “I am going to lead the charge to investigate Russia’s role, not only in the elections but throughout the world,” Graham said. “So I’m going after Russia in every way we can go after Russia. I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay a price.”

 In terms of that price, the US has what experts call the most sophisticated offensive cyber capabilities in the world, and it could easily retaliate. The question always has been how, since no one wants to initiate an escalating tit-for-tat cyber war that could easily get out of hand. One of the most powerful US messages, for example, could be taking out a piece of the Russian electric grid; but Russia presumably is armed with similar capability and could do the same thing. In which case, what does the US do next?

 Until now, Obama has seemed reluctant to act without bipartisan support in the form of consensus from the Republican-controlled Congress. In September, White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco, plus FBI director James Comey, and cabinet secretary of homeland security Jeh Johnson, met with 12 Senate leaders of both parties to brief them on the election hacking. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell responded by casting doubt on the intelligence, and pushed back against any public rebuke of Russia. He said he would view that as not factual, but a partisan message from the Democratic party.

 With a Republican in the White House and the war over with Obama, however, McConnell and other Republican congressional leaders could look at the intelligence differently. But Trump, who has publicly expressed admiration for and a desire to get along with Putin, could be a different story. Obama certainly appears to be preparing for the possibility that Trump would ignore any evidence of Russian meddling. ||||| CIA officials told senators it is now "quite clear" that electing Donald Trump was Russia's goal. In an interview on Fox News Sunday on Dec. 11, President-elect Trump denied the CIA's assessment. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

 As evidence piles up that Russia actively tried to tilt the presidential election to Donald Trump, the big flash point over a potential U.S. response won't just be between that nation and the United States — it could also be between the president-elect and the Republican Party.

 Some senior congressional Republicans are indicating that they want to investigate Russia's meddling in our election; Trump — as well as some members of the GOP on Capitol Hill — has been clear that he wants to give Russia the benefit of the doubt. (After all, it's his victory that risks being called into question.)

 It's a no-win situation for the GOP. But what if Russia-distrusting Republicans in Congress could get Trump to take a tougher line with Moscow? It would certainly make their lives a lot easier by allowing them to both hold Russia accountable and avoid a potential intraparty war as soon as Trump takes office.

 They do have options to try to steer Trump away from being friendly with Russia — though pretty much all of them risk some level of confrontation with their president. Of course, there's no guarantee Trump would go along with Congress. But Mieke Eoyang, a national security expert with the center-left think tank Third Way, weighed in on four ways Congress could act, whether the commander in chief is on board or not:

 1. Hold hearings. Lots of hearings.

 Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

 A hearing is Congress's equivalent of a bully pulpit.

 And there are some early indications that Republicans, who control both chambers, intend to use it to get tough on Russia — and Trump. The Washington Post's Karoun Demirjian reported that several Republican senators who run powerful committees — Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) on the Armed Services Committee, Richard Burr (N.C.) on the Intelligence Committee and Bob Corker (Tenn.) on the Foreign Relations Committee — are readying hearings on Russia's ability to hack into U.S. political parties and even weapons systems.

 These coordinated hearings are likely to have three overarching goals, each of which builds on the other:

 1. Explain to the American public what, exactly, officials think Russia did to try to influence the election and how directly involved its government was in this.

 2. Piece together an ironclad case that Russia took unprecedented steps to meddle in American democracy.

 3. Try to prove to Trump that Russia is the bad guy here, in a way that gives their president no outs to say, as he did this past week, that the election-related hacks could have been done by “some guy in his home in New Jersey.”

 Then again, these hearings also risk dividing Republicans in Congress. The Post reported Friday that in September, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) got a secret briefing on all this and threw doubt on intelligence officials' assessment that Russia was meddling in the election to benefit Trump. And he made clear he'd consider any attempt to go public with it before the election to be a partisan attack on his nominee.

 Which raises the question of how those who wanted to defend Trump before the election will react to these revelations now that he's about a month shy of being president.

 2. Take it to Russia overseas

 A boy looks at a mural depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and President-elect Donald Trump in Belgrade, Serbia. (Andrej Cukic/European Pressphoto Agency)

 The battleground for this fight is in Syria and Ukraine. (Few things having to do with U.S.-Russian relations are direct.) Shortly after the election, the House passed a bill that would levy sanctions against any nation that tries to help the Syrian government in its effort to regain control in a years-long civil war. (The United States is on the side of the rebels.)

 The bill was aimed partly at Russia, which has been providing military aid to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as human rights groups have said the Syrian government is slaughtering and even torturing innocent civilians.

 Congress also passed a defense policy bill that calls for providing millions of dollars worth of weapons and other lethal aid to the government of Ukraine, another country torn by violence where the United States and Russia have held very different positions.

 These bills attempt to draw a line in the sand for Russia and its actions overseas, but they also draw a line in the sand for Trump: Sign them or risk looking weak on Syria/Russia/the Islamic State.

 Trump has said it would be “wonderful” if the United States and Russia could work together in Syria. But it's much easier to say that during a campaign than it is to veto a bill that your own party put on your desk and says is crucial to U.S. national security interests.

 (There's also always the possibility of other sanctions aimed at Russia that have more to do with its actions in the United States than its Syria moves — though no sign of anything of that sort is in the works.)

 3. Start a war of words with Trump

 A bipartisan group of senators say they want to investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 U.S. election, amongst claims that Donald Trump's rhetoric on Russia and Vladimir Putin is too soft. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

 I call this one the Lindsey O. Graham method: Call out those who disagree with you on Russia strategy, even if that person is the president.

 Or, perhaps, especially if that person is the president.

 “I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia,” the Republican South Carolina senator said Wednesday on CNN. “I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin personally to pay the price.”

 This step probably creates the most chaos between Trump and his party, but it could be most effective if Republicans really do want to steer him away from Russia, Eoyang said.

 Democrats have been crying foul about Russia for some time now, but their words often get lost in everyday partisan bickering — especially when their side is the one that lost the presidential election.

 It raises eyebrows — and makes headlines — when Republicans are the ones critiquing their own president's position on Russia. And that could make it harder for Trump to ignore or dismiss.

 4. Hope Russia shows its true colors

 Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in Moscow. (Pool photo by Natalia Kolesnikova via Associated Press)

 Intelligence officials say there's “consensus” in their community that Russia tried to sway the U.S. election in an “unprecedented” way.

 But you'd also be hard pressed to find a national security official who thinks Russia did this because it likes Trump, Eoyang said: “It's not like the Russians are partisan. They just want to see America weak.”

 In other words, some national security experts say that they think it's only a matter of time until Russia decides it is in its interests to try to undermine Trump.

 And letting Russia make the case to Trump via its own actions that it is a foe, not a friend, could be one of the most effective ways — possibly the only effective way — for Russia-skeptical Republicans in Congress to get their president to actually see Moscow the way they do. |||||Summary:

– The fallout from Friday night's "bombshell" report from the CIA that Russian hackers directly interfered with the US election in order to get Donald Trump elected continued Saturday. Here are seven things you need to know: With Trump criticizing the CIA—rather than Russia—in the wake of the report, the New York Times reports he's opening an "extraordinary breach" between himself and the national security establishment he's bound to need during his presidency. While mostly at a loss, Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast has a few pieces of advice for what Democrats should do next: "Demand the release of the information. Demand a real investigation...The media needs to get the message that conservatives aren’t the only people who get pissed off." In a "no-win situation for the GOP," some Republicans in Congress want to investigate Russia's involvement in the election against Trump's wishes. The Washington Post has four ways they could take on Russia, with or without the president-elect. Harry Reid is calling for the resignation of FBI director James Comey, who he compares to J. Edgar Hoover and accuses of covering up information about Russia's activities to get Trump elected, the Guardian reports. Pamela Kruger at Fortune points out that Trump did Saturday what he normally does when faced with a major negative story: spend the morning tweeting about something completely unrelated; Celebrity Apprentice, in this case. Worried Trump will ignore Russian threats to US democracy when he takes office, Quartz reports President Obama is "racing against the clock" to get a full report on Russia's involvement in US affairs before he steps down in six weeks. Meanwhile, John McCain says the close relationship between Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson—Trump's likely secretary of state—and Vladimir Putin "a matter of concern," the Hill reports. With Democrats needing only three GOP senators to vote against Tillerson, a McCain aide says a confirmation is unlikely. "Putin is a thug, bully, and a murderer, and anybody else who describes him as anything else is lying," McCain says.


Image copyright AP

 A police officer has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and sexually assaulting black women in the poor part of Oklahoma where he worked.

 Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, stopped the women while out on patrol in Oklahoma City and forced himself on them.

 Last month, he was convicted of assault on eight victims, including a grandmother and a 17-year-old.

 On Thursday, a district judge sentenced him to 263 years, in line with what jurors recommended.

 During the trial, Holtzclaw's lawyer insisted his client had been attempting to help the drug addicts and prostitutes he encountered in his work. Many of the women had arrest records or histories of drug abuse.

 The court heard from several women who described abuse at the hands of the officer and the feeling that their lives were threatened.

 All of his accusers were black. Holtzclaw is half-white and half-Japanese.

 He cried when the verdicts were delivered last month.

 Rallying support for 'imperfect' accusers ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

 Jan. 21, 2016, 8:54 PM GMT / Updated Jan. 21, 2016, 8:54 PM GMT By Jacquellena Carrero

 A former Oklahoma City police officer who was found guilty of raping more than a dozen women while on duty was sentenced to 263 years in prison on Thursday.

 According to NBC's Oklahoma City station KFOR, a judge sentenced Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, to 263 years in prison.

 In December, a jury convicted Holtzclaw of 18 counts of sexual battery, rape and other offenses. He was acquitted on 18 other counts.

 According to Oklahoma state court records, Holtzclaw’s attorney Scott Adams filed a motion for a new trial — just one day before a judge would officially sentence him. The judge at today's sentencing hearing denied that motion.

 Adams claimed that his client was denied a fair trial because "the government made deliberate discovery violations and misrepresentations, undermining confidence in the verdict," according to court documents obtained by NBC News.

 In the filing, Adams alleged that a Facebook post by a police detective referenced evidence that was “withheld from the defense by the government.”

 During Holtzclaw’s trial, thirteen women took the stand and testified that the former cop had coerced them into having sex after threatening to arrest them for possessing drug paraphernalia or on outstanding warrants.

 All of Holtzclaw’s victims were black women that he stopped while on patrol.

 In a statement released after Holtzclaw’s guilty verdict in December, the Oklahoma City Police Department said it was "pleased with the jury’s decision."

 "It was a long and difficult trial and deliberation process for all involved. It is obvious the jury took their responsibilities very seriously and considered every piece of evidence presented to them," the statement read. ||||| (CNN) Daniel Holtzclaw, the ex-Oklahoma City officer convicted of rape and other charges after he preyed on African-American women over six months, was sentenced Thursday to 263 years in prison, as recommended by the jury, according to his attorney.

 The sentence comes just over a month after a sobbing Holtzclaw was convicted on 18 of 36 counts, including four counts of first-degree rape and four counts of forced oral sodomy.

 Prosecutors said Holtzclaw selected victims in one of Oklahoma City's poorest neighborhoods based on their criminal histories, assuming their drug or prostitution records would undermine any claims they might make against him.

 Then, he would subject them to assaults that escalated from groping to oral sodomy and rape, according to the testimony of 13 victims. Holtzclaw, whose father is a police lieutenant on another force, waived his right to testify.

 Two of those women shared their stories with CNN on Wednesday, recounting horrific memories of being forced to perform sexual acts by a serial rapist with a badge who was supposed to protect and serve.

 Jury wants 263 years

 Because the victims are black, race has been regularly invoked in the case. His trial began in November and was criticized by activists after an all-white jury was chosen. Protesters repeatedly gathered outside.

 JUST WATCHED Former police officer convicted of sex crimes Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Former police officer convicted of sex crimes 06:10

 Holtzclaw, whose father is white and mother is Japanese, is identified as "Asian or Pacific Islander" by court records

 Attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, has criticized the media, asking, "Where is the national outcry for their justice?"

 Crump praised the sentence Thursday saying it was "a landmark victory."

 "All the women were victims, from the 17-year old teenager to the 57-year old grandmother. This is a statement for 400 years of racism, oppression and sexual assault of black women; a statement of victory not only for the 'OKC 13,' but for so many unknown women," Crump said in a statement.

 On Wednesday, Holtzclaw's lawyers asked for a new trial, alleging prosecutors did not disclose newly discovered evidence -- including DNA evidence and the accounts of accusers who falsely claimed to be victims -- to the defense, according to CNN affiliate KFOR . Court documents posted on the station's website say a detective referenced the evidence in a Facebook post.

 The judge denied the motion for a new trial.

 The defense team filed for an appeal in court on Thursday, and it was denied, Crump said. They plan to appeal again, he said, but he was not sure what arguments they will use.

 Holtzclaw's attorneys aren't the only ones declaring his innocence, despite the verdict. His sister also runs a blog dedicated to telling her brother's "untold story."

 Victims' stories

 One of Holtzclaw's victims, Jannie Ligons, grandmother of 12, was among those who spoke at the sentencing on Thursday.

 In an interview with CNN this week, she recalled driving down Lincoln Street when Holtzclaw pulled her over and told her she was swerving, "which was untrue," she said. He told her to get out of the car.

 "He put a flashlight on my chest. He told me to pull my pants down to my knees. I did that but real quick and pulled them back up again. He pulled out his flashlight and shined it on my privates. I said. 'Sir, you not supposed to do this.' He said, 'Get back into my vehicle.' I did what he said. I began to get very, very scared," Ligons said.

 She remembers him telling her, "Damn, you got a big ass."

 "I thought he was going to kill me because I had seen his face and could tell on him and he was an officer and had to know he wasn't supposed to do this," she said.

 That's when Holtzclaw ordered her to perform oral sex, she said. Her mind racing and tears gushing from her then-57-year-old eyes, she was both disgusted and terrified.

 "I tried to perform oral sex," she said. "And trying to talk, I kept saying, 'Sir, please don't make me do this.' I said, 'Are you gonna shoot me?' He said, 'I promise I am not. ' I didn't believe him. I kept seeing his gun while he was making me do this right there on the street. I was sitting in the passenger side of the car and he was standing there. It was so horrifying. It was unreal. I cried and cried," Ligons said.

 Finally, he let her go, and "I decided right then If he didn't kill me I was going to tell on him," she said.

 Rape in a hospital bed

 She picked up her daughter and went to the police station. Investigators interviewed her and sent her to the hospital. She soon learned she was the last in a string of sexual assaults and rapes committed by Holtzclaw.

 "The detective I talked to in the hospital came in and she believed me. While she was writing the report she said, 'I got a good idea who it was,' " Ligons said. "I was relieved at first, but then I wondered why he was still on the street if they knew who it was."

 Ligons told reporters after the verdict was announced last month that she had to enter therapy and later "had a stroke behind this."

 Another victim, 24-year-old Shandegreon "Sade" Hill, told CNN she was intoxicated the night Holtzclaw arrested her.

 He promised to get her prior charges dropped, but while she was handcuffed to the hospital bed trying to detox, he raped her, she said.

 "He started to touch me. He touched my breast. From there, I just didn't know what to think. I am in his custody because whatever he tells me in my mind I just did it. As far as I know I could wind up dead in the hospital saying I was overdosed," Hill said.

 "He violated me. And made me give him oral. He stuck his hands into my privates. He done everything against my will, " she told CNN, her voice shaking and angry.

 Holtzclaw continued to pursue her, even following her to her home and stalking her on social media, she said.

 JUST WATCHED Former Oklahoma City officer accused of raping 13 women Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Former Oklahoma City officer accused of raping 13 women 02:11

 These are just two of the stories from the 13 victims, one of whom was 17 at the time and testified she was raped on her mother's front porch.

 Grandmother brought him down

 Ligons' report would be the one that finally yielded Holtzclaw's arrest. After she went to police and media outlets, investigators found another dozen victims. She now has a civil lawsuit pending against the former officer and the city, filed on behalf of several victims. Hill has filed a state civil lawsuit against Holtzclaw and Oklahoma City.

 Crump has called Ligons "a true hero -- not just for black women but all women."

 "The statistics on rape victims reporting the crimes against them are low to being with. This grandmother had the strength to come forward not just against her assailant but against a police officer. That is a frightening thing to do," he said.

 Holtzclaw was a former linebacker on the Eastern Michigan University football team and graduated with a degree in criminal justice.

 Prosecutors say his ruthless scheme began during a June 2014 traffic stop. He was fired from the force in January 2015 after an internal investigation. |||||

Write a summary.

– A former police officer accused of raping more than a dozen women while on patrol will spend the rest of his life behind bars after being sentenced to 263 years in prison on Thursday, NBC News reports. Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, was charged in 2014 and found guilty on 18 of 36 counts last month. According to CNN, Holtzclaw found his victims—ranging in age from 17 to 57—in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Oklahoma City and targeted them for their histories with drugs or prostitution, believing that would protect him from accusations. During the trial, 13 women—all black—testified that Holtzclaw threatened to arrest them if they didn't have sex with him, NBC reports. According to the BBC, they felt their lives were in danger. Holtzclaw's attorney had petitioned for a new trial on Wednesday, claiming his client didn't get a fair trial due to evidence being withheld from the defense, NBC reports. That request was denied by the judge when Holtzclaw was sentenced. During the trial, Holtzclaw's attorney claimed his client was trying to help the victims, according to the BBC.


While Ashley Madison and its parent company grapple with fallout from the recent hack of its network, emails released in the latest hacking leak indicate that the company’s own former CTO may have hacked a competing dating site.

 According to an email exchange in November 2012, Ashley Madison’s one-time CTO told colleagues, including the CEO of parent company Avid Life Media, that he had found a security hole in the web site of Nerve.com and used it to exfiltrate the competitor’s entire database. He also indicated that he had the ability to alter records in the database.

 “They did a very lousy job building their platform. I got their entire user base,” Raja Bhatia wrote Noel Biderman, CEO of Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison’s parent company, and Rizwan Jiwan, the company's chief operating officer. "Also, I can turn any non paying user into a paying user, vice versa, compose messages between users, check unread stats, etc.”

 Bhatia had been the founding CTO of Avid Life Media, but was no longer associated with the company at the time he sent the email to Biderman and Jiwan. According to his Angel List page, he was CTO for ALM from 2007 to 2010.

 He noted in the email that he had posted a sample of the stolen database to a GitHub account and included a link to the GitHub site, although that post is no longer available online.

 Six months later, in May 2013, Biderman discussed whether he should disclose the vulnerability to Nerve.com.

 “Should I tell them of their security hole?” he wrote Bhatia. There is no apparent response among the leaked emails.

 Although the emails discuss setting up a phone call with Nerve.com, it’s not clear if ALM did disclose the vulnerability.

 Neither Avid Life Media nor Bhatia responded to a request for comment from WIRED.

 If Bhatia did in fact hack Nerve.com and exfiltrate its database, he could be criminally charged with unauthorized access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. There is also great irony in Bhatia discussing a vulnerability in Nerve.com's web site, since other emails show that he was aware that AshleyMadison.com had security problems of its own—issues that the Impact Team, which has taken credit for the company's recent hack, exploited.

 “With what we inherited with Ashley[Madison.com], security was an obvious afterthought, and I didn't focus on it either,” Bhatia wrote in an email in early 2012, months before he disclosed finding the vulnerability in Nerve.com's web site. “I am pretty sure we stored passwords without any cryptography so a database leak would expose all account credentials.

 In that email, Bhatia was responding to news of another hack that had recently targeted Grindr, a dating app aimed at gay and bisexual men.

 Despite an awareness of ALM's own vulnerabilities, CEO Biderman saw the downfall of competitors as an opportunity to promote himself and his business. "It would be huge if we could get me on as a commentator on this," Biderman wrote after Snapchat was attacked in 2014.

 In 2012, Nerve.com had a dating platform that ALM considered purchasing. Nerve's CEO was Sean Mills, who had previously been president of The Onion satirical news site and is currently head of original content for Snapchat.

 From looking at the emails in the recent data dump, it's clear that ALM considered buying Nerve. The email chain indicates that ALM began considering the purchase after Rufus Grissom, a VP with Babble.com, sent Biderman an email in June 2012 suggesting it.

 “Several years ago I spoke with Glenn Graff about his interest in buying Nerve on behalf of Avid Life,” Griscom wrote. “Not sure where you guys are today, but I think this could be pretty interesting for you to have a look at. Sean has created a very innovative dating platform, and leaving that aside the site has 1.4 million high value, organic uniques (about 50/50 men/women) and there is a lot brand loyalty out there.”

 In April, someone else contacted Biderman, asking if he was interested in buying Nerve. He wrote back saying “They reached out to us a couple of times – not sure we are the best buyer for Nerve given what we focus on these days.”

 A month later, however, Biderman and others were exchanging emails about Nerve.com and Flirts.com.

 “Enclosed are the traffic and audience overviews for the second offering (Nerve.com)," Christian Kalled wrote in an email to Leonard Latchman of LDL. “As for Flirts.com, our working valuation for the URL and non-exclusive TM license is $300,000 USD.”

 Latchman wrote back asking about setting up a meeting with “the insurance guys.” That email appeared in a thread in which Lachtman asked about setting up a video call, presumably with Nerve.com. Biderman sent Bhatia a separate email asking, “Should I tell them of their security hole?”

 Mills, the former CEO of Nerve.com, did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED. ||||| Hacked online cheating service AshleyMadison.com is portraying itself as a victim of malicious cybercriminals, but leaked emails from the company’s CEO suggest that AshleyMadison’s top leadership hacked into a competing dating service in 2012.

 Late last week, the Impact Team — the hacking group that has claimed responsibility for leaking personal data on more than 30 million AshleyMadison users — released a 30-gigabyte archive that it said were emails lifted from AshleyMadison CEO Noel Biderman.

 A review of those missives shows that on at least one occasion, a former company executive hacked another dating website, exfiltrating their entire user database. On Nov. 30, 2012, Raja Bhatia, the founding chief technology officer of AshleyMadison.com, sent a message to Biderman notifying his boss of a security hole discovered in nerve.com, an American online magazine dedicated to sexual topics, relationships and culture.

 At the time, nerve.com was experimenting with its own adult dating section, and Bhatia said he’d uncovered a way to download and manipulate the nerve.com user database.

 “They did a very lousy job building their platform. I got their entire user base,” Bhatia told Biderman via email, including in the message a link to a Github archive with a sample of the database. “Also, I can turn any non paying user into a paying user, vice versa, compose messages between users, check unread stats, etc.”

 Neither Bhatia nor Biderman could be immediately reached for comment. KrebsOnSecurity.com spoke with Bhatia last week after the Impact Team made good on its threat to release the Ashley Madison user database. At the time, Bhatia was downplaying the leak, saying that his team of investigators had found no signs that the dump of data was legitimate, and that it looked like a number of fake data dumps the company had seen in the weeks prior. Hours later, the leak had been roundly confirmed as legitimate by countless users on Twitter who were able to find their personal data in the cache of account information posted online.

 The leaked Biderman emails show that a few months before Bhatia infiltrated Nerve.com, AshleyMadison’s parent firm — Avid Life Media — was approached with an offer to partner with and/or invest in the property. Email messages show that Bhatia initially was interested enough to offer at least $20 million for the company along with a second property called flirts.com, but that AshleyMadison ultimately declined to pursue a deal.

 More than six months after Bhatia came to Biderman with revelations of the nerve.com security vulnerabilities, Biderman was set to meet with several representatives of the company. “Should I tell them of their security hole?” Biderman wrote to Bhatia, who doesn’t appear to have responded to that question via email.

 The cache of emails leaked from Biderman run from January 2012 to July 7, 2015 — less than two weeks before the attackers publicized their break-in on July 19. According to a press conference held by the Toronto Police today, AshleyMadison employees actually discovered the breach on the morning of July 12, 2015, when they came to work and powered on their computers only to find their screens commandeered with the initial message from the Impact Team — a diatribe accompanied by the song “Thunderstruck” from rock band AC/DC playing in the background.

 Interestingly, less than a month before that episode, AshleyMadison executives seemed very keen on completing a series of internal security assessments, audits and security awareness training exercises for employees.

 “Given our open registration policy and recent high profile exploits, every security consultant and their extended family will be trying to trump up business,” wrote Ashley Madison Director of Security Mark Steele to Biderman in an email dated May 25, 2015. “Our codebase has many (riddled?) XSS/CRSF vulnerabilities which are relatively easy to find (for a security researcher), and somewhat difficult to exploit in the wild (requires phishing). Other vulnerabilities would be things like SQL injection/data leaks, which would be much more damaging” [links added].

 As bad as this breach has been for AshleyMadison and its millions of users, it’s likely nowhere near over: Hackers who have been combing through the company’s leaked email records have just released a “selected dox” archive — a collection of documents, images and other data from Biderman’s inbox, including a 100-page movie script co-written by Biderman called “In Bed With Ashley Madison.” Also included in the archive are dozens of other sensitive documents, including a scan of the CEO’s drivers license, copies of personal checks, bank account numbers, home address, and his income statements for the last four years.

 Also, the Impact Team still have not released data from the other Avid Life Media property they claim to have hacked — Establishedmen.com, a “sugar daddy” site that claims to connect wealthy men with willing young women.

 Earlier today, Toronto Police announced that Avid Life Media had offered a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the hacker or hackers responsible for the breach. But many readers took to Twitter or to the comments section on this site to denounce the bounty as an overdue or cynical ploy, with some saying the company should have offered the reward weeks ago — before the Impact Team released the company’s entire user database and caused so much irreversible damage.

 Leaving aside the proliferation of sites that now allow suspicious spouses to search for their significant other’s email address in the AshleyMadison data leak, some users are finding themselves on the receiving end of online extortion attacks. Worse still, Toronto Police told reporters this morning that they have two unconfirmed reports of suicides associated with the leak of AshleyMadison customer profiles.

 Tags: Avid Life Media, Impact Team, Noel Biderman, Raja Bhatia |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– "They did a very lousy job building their platform," former Ashley Madison chief technology officer Raja Bhatia allegedly wrote to CEO Noel Biderman in 2012. "I got their entire user base." Ironically—considering Ashley Madison is now dealing with its own stolen data being leaked by hackers—Bhatia was referring to a competitor site he allegedly hacked back in 2012, Krebs on Security reports. According to Biderman's leaked emails, Bhatia figured out how to download the user database of Nerve.com (which was starting its own dating site) and manipulate it in ways including changing non-paying users to paying users, sending messages from one user to another, and more. Krebs on Security reports that, per the leaked emails, Bhatia's hack came months after Nerve approached Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, about a partnership. In fact, Bhatia offered $20 million to buy Nerve and another site, but Avid Life Media decided not to go through with the deal. Wired reports Bhatia was no longer working for Ashley Madison when he discovered Nerve's security problems, but additional leaked emails show he was also aware of similar security issues within Ashley Madison. Last week's release of stolen Ashley Madison data has already resulted in reports of online blackmailing and possibly two suicides, and more leaks may be on their way.


Here is a news article: A newly discovered bug renders iPhones useless if the system date is set to January 1, 1970.

 Why would anyone purposely set their phone to a date 45 years in the past? Well, one possibility is that they've been fooled by a troll.

 The above image was posted to notorious anonymous forum 4Chan on Thursday, and has been spotted on Facebook and Reddit.

 Anyone changing their iPhone's date hoping for a delightful rainbow-colored Apple logo easter egg will soon discover their phone refuses to boot up. It can't be fixed except by an Apple Store, which will most likely simply offer a replacement.

 The bug is related to a very old, well-documented issue with the Unix class of operating systems on which Apple's iOS is loosely based – it's similar to a Facebook glitch that prompted its users to celebrate "46 years of friendship" in December.

 EXCLUSIVE FREE REPORT:

 25 Big Tech Predictions by BI Intelligence. Get the Report Now » 25 Big Tech Predictions by BI Intelligence. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

 Feb. 12, 2016, 8:52 PM GMT / Updated Feb. 12, 2016, 8:52 PM GMT By James Eng

 Want to go back in time to January 1, 1970? Just make sure you don’t do it on your iPhone.

 Changing the Date & Time settings to that fateful date will disable your device, Apple users report. And good luck trying to get it to restart: Connecting the disabled phone to your computer and trying to reboot it via iTunes won’t work.

 One chagrined user posted about his device's demise on an online Apple help forum:

 "Hello, I was playing around with my Date & Time settings and I changed the time to January 1st 1970. I shutdown my phone and restarted it, the result is a bricked iPhone. I've tried restoring, updating, but nothing seems to be working."

 Tech website 9to5mac posted a video demonstrating the date bug, which appears to only affect Apple devices with 64-bit processors — meaning iPhone 5S, iPad Air, iPad Mini 2 and the sixth-generation iPod Touch, or newer models of those devices. Trying to restart the device seems to only bring back the Apple logo screen, where it apparently gets permanently stuck.

 Apple hasn’t responded to a query from NBC News about the apparent bug.

 Related: Apple Says 1 Billion of Its Devices Are in Active Use Around the World

 What's so special about 1 January 1970? Techie commenters on Reddit and elsewhere note that’s the start of Unix time, a way for developers to track time as a running total of seconds. Manually setting your Apple gadget to that date apparently causes a conflict that will chock the device. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Setting your iPhone's date and time to Jan. 1, 1970, will instantly make you experience what life in the '70s was like—because you'll no longer have a cellphone. "I changed the time to January 1st 1970," NBC News quotes one poor iPhone user's complaint to Apple. "I shutdown my phone and restarted it, the result is a bricked iPhone. I've tried restoring, updating, but nothing seems to be working." Wired reports it's a bug that appears to be affecting 64-bit iOS devices, such as the iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and other newer models. Moving an iPhone's date setting back by 46 years isn't something most people would do without some prompting. So, of course, there's been some prompting. An official-looking promotional image popped up on the 4Chan forum on Thursday before spreading to Facebook and Reddit, Business Insider reports. The image instructs people with iPhones to change the date to Jan. 1, 1970 for a fun "easter egg": a rainbow-colored retro Apple logo when the phone is rebooted. Instead, the phone refuses to start back up and requires either a physical fix or complete replacement. So what's causing this odd bug? "It’s almost certainly related to the same Unix glitch that caused Facebook to wish people a happy 46 years on the service," Wired states.


Article:
Let's hope Valentino has a short memory. The revered fashion icon, who custom-designed Anne Hathaway's wedding gown and considers her a friend, naturally expected the Les Miserables actress to wear one of his designs to the Oscars on Feb. 24, where she ultimately won her first Academy Award. His team even sent out a press release late in the afternoon on Sunday, just hours before red carpet arrivals began, announcing that the Best Supporting Actress frontrunner would be wearing "a pink embroidered tulle illusion gown." The release also stated that one of the night's most anticipated presenters, Jennifer Aniston, would be wearing a "nude embroidered silk tulle dress."

 PHOTOS: See what the stars wore to the Oscars!

 Neither, of course, ended up in those two gowns at the event.

 Instead, the Les Miserables star opted to go with the Prada column dress that sparked the infamous "are they darts or nipples?" debate. A source tells Us Weekly that the last-second switch has much to do with her Les Miserables costar Amanda Seyfried, whose Oscar dress (by Alexander McQueen) was remarkably similar to the Valentino design that Hathaway had originally planned to wear.

 Steve Granitz/WireImage.com

 The source tells Us that Hathaway asked Seyfried, "What are you wearing? Can you send me a picture of it?'" After Seyfried obliged, an aghast Hathaway quickly changed course, ultimately going with the controversial Prada dress.

 PHOTOS: See Anne's style evolution

 Says another insider: "She really should have worn Valentino. The gown she picked was beautiful!"

 Dan MacMedan/WireImage.com

 Aniston, meanwhile, showed up not in Valentino's nude tulle dress but in the designer's bright red strapless gown. It's anyone's guess why she, too, changed her mind, but some in the fashion industry are conjecturing that perhaps Hathaway's camp, fearing the two stars would both walk the red carpet in pale tulle Valentino numbers, had something to do with it.

 Tell Us: Do you think Hathaway should have worn the Valentino dress instead? ||||| Anne Hathaway (left) and the Valentino dress that appears to have been her first choice

 What’s a girl to do?

 Best Supporting Actress winner Anne Hathaway’s pale pink (and hotly debated) Prada gown wasn’t the actress’s first choice for the Academy Awards last Sunday.

 “It came to my attention late Saturday night that there would be a dress worn to the Oscars that is remarkably similar to the Valentino I had intended to wear, and so I decided it was best for all involved to change my plans,” she tells PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.

 The actress, 30, is indeed a longtime fan of Valentino and has embraced the fashion house’s designs for many years, including when she wed Adam Shulman last September.

 “Though I love the dress I did wear, it was a difficult last minute decision as I had so looked forward to wearing Valentino in honor of the deep and meaningful relationship I have enjoyed with the house and with Valentino himself,” Hathaway continues.

 “I deeply regret any disappointment caused.” |||||Summary:

– Anne Hathaway's nipples got so much attention at the Oscars that they now have their own Twitter account—but Hathaway wasn't even supposed to be wearing the Prada dress that showcased them so well. She had originally chosen a Valentino dress, and Valentino even put out a press release Sunday saying Hathaway would be wearing one of the fashion house's designs. But she made a switch after hearing the night before "that there would be a dress worn to the Oscars that is remarkably similar to the Valentino I had intended to wear," she tells People in a statement. A source tells Us the person in question was Hathaway's own Les Miserables co-star, Amanda Seyfried, who wore Alexander McQueen (you can see a comparison of the two dresses here). But Hathaway has a longstanding relationship with Valentino, who custom-designed her wedding dress, and regrets "any disappointment caused," she says. "Though I love the dress I did wear, it was a difficult last minute decision as I had so looked forward to wearing Valentino in honor of the deep and meaningful relationship I have enjoyed with the house and with Valentino himself."


News article:

Cyclospora, the identified parasite, is rarely seen in the United States.

 A prepackaged lettuce mix. (Photo: Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY) Story Highlights The national cyclospora outbreak linked to food has reached 397 victims

 Iowa and Nebraska have fingered prepackaged salad

 Others aren't so sure about culprit

 Food safety experts are beginning to grumble that an investigation into the latest food-borne illness is taking too long to find the exact source of the outbreak. Two states, Iowa and Nebraska, have reported they believe the outbreak is linked to prepackaged, bagged salad mix, but others aren't so sure.

 The number of victims in the national outbreak of the food-linked diarrheal disease cyclospora rose to 397, with illnesses reported in 16 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported late Wednesday.

 The CDC says it is working to determine whether the possible link to bagged salad mix applies to cases in other states as well.

 The Food and Drug Administration "can't speak to an ongoing investigation," said FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman.

 "With 390-some people ill, you'd think it would be fairly easy to triangulate the trace back" to the food causing the illnesses, said Dave Gombas, senior vice president for food safety with United Fresh Produce Association, a produce trade group in Washington, D.C. "So the fact that FDA and CDC aren't going along with Iowa and Nebraska gives me pause."

 STORY: Experts: Health risks higher from packaged greens

 Cyclospora is an intestinal illnesses caused by the microscopic parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis. It is transmitted when feces enter the food or water supply and are consumed. The disease causes watery and sometimes explosive diarrhea and is treated with antibiotics. Symptoms can include fatigue, anorexia, bloating, stomach cramps, vomiting, muscle aches and a low fever.

 Michael Last is a parasitologist at the Iowa State Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Iowa in Coralville who first recognized that an outbreak of diarrheal disease in Iowa in June was caused by the microscopic parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis. It is transmitted when feces enter the food or water supply and are consumed. (Photo: Mary DeMartino, Iowa State Hygienic Laboratory)

 At least 22 people in five states have been hospitalized in the outbreak.

 Iowa's public health system first caught the outbreak on June 25 when Michael Last, a parasitologist at the State Hygienic Laboratory at the University of Iowa in Coralville, recognized the parasite in a stool sample sent in by a physician for testing.

 He is "a good, good, good microbiologist," said Patricia Quinlisk, Iowa's state epidemiologist.

 The parasite is rarely seen in the United States. "We haven't had a major outbreak from cyclospora in almost a decade," said Caroline Smith DeWaal with the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. Her database shows the most recent large outbreak was in Florida in 2005, where 592 people were sickened with contaminated basil. The nation's largest-known cyclospora outbreak was in 1996 when raspberries from Guatemala sickened 1,465 in multiple states, she said.

 Using Twitter, Facebook and other media, Iowa officials made sure health workers across the state were looking for similar illnesses. Very quickly more cases came in, including from Nebraska next door. Most of the patients had gotten sick in mid-June.

 "At the peak of this outbreak we were seeing anywhere from seven to 12 new cases a day," said Mary DeMartino, who runs Iowa's Disease Control Division of the State Hygienic Laboratory.

 Iowa health workers established that about 80% of the people who had gotten sick had eaten the same brand of prepackaged salad mix containing iceberg and romaine lettuce, carrots and red cabbage. Packaged lettuce has a short shelf life, so by the time investigators began interviewing people "the bags were long gone," Quinlisk said. That means there wasn't anything for them to test to see which of the mix's four ingredients was responsible for the illnesses.

 A photomicrograph of a fresh stool sample, which had been prepared using a 10% formalin solution and stained with modified acid-fast stain, reveals the presence of four Cyclospora cayetanensis oocysts. Iowa and Nebraska health officials said Tuesday that a prepackaged salad mix is the source of a cyclospora outbreak. (Photo: CDC via AP)

 The last person Iowa tested got sick on June 28. State officials believe the tainted lot of salad mix is gone from store shelves and the outbreak is waning there. What's going on in other states is difficult to say because "their epidemiology looks a little different," Quinlisk said.

 It wouldn't surprise her at all if there were more than one outbreak going on, Quinlisk said. "When we look at the data from other states, the people who are getting ill are not necessarily the same as we saw; they're not getting sick at the same time." Bagged salad may not explain all the illnesses in the nation.

 Some of the food safety world feels the investigation has not moved as quickly as it should have. "This thing should have been solved a month ago," said Michael Osterholm, Minnesota's former state epidemiologist who now directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

 The fact that patrons of a large number of restaurants became ill, including several national chains, "should have helped them," he said. "They were national chain restaurants all owned by one company, which in turn got its ingredients from a single source."

 Finding the culprit isn't easy and takes time, Quinlisk said. "Most people's idea of an outbreak is everybody went to the same grocery store and bought the same item. It's not like that. It wasn't one brand name, it was a salad mixture that came into Iowa in a variety of ways in different packaging."

 Cyclospora is a protozoan that can cause severe diarrhea if left untreated. (Photo: The Des Moines Register)

 Another issue is that Iowa, like at least 30 other states, has laws on the books protecting agricultural producers. These laws encourage states not to make public information about possible contamination of food that might harm sales unless there is an ongoing outbreak that puts people at risk.

 "They don't say 'Thou shall not tell who the business is,'" said Bill Marler, a lawyer in Seattle who has been involved in food-borne illness outbreaks for decades. Instead it's a discretionary decision that has led to a "culture of non-disclosure" that he and others believe is hampering the investigation.

 "This ain't done yet. I think the investigation has a long way to go," Gombas said.

 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1ctlKuv ||||| Laws may stop identification of cyclospora source

 10/2: No progress on shutdown after White House meeting; ICU patients often leave with dementia, study shows

 (CBS News) NEW YORK -- The mystery over the cyclospora outbreak has deepened. Cyclospora is a dangerous parasite that causes stomach illness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday there are now 397 cases in 16 states, but no one has yet identified the source.

 In early July, days after eating salads at home and at restaurants in Texas, Suzie Matteis developed diarrhea that persisted for weeks before a test found cyclospora.

 The CDC said Thursday there are now 397 cases of cyclospora in 16 states. / CBS News

 "I had Montezuma's revenge, dysentery, something was going on," Matteis said. "Weight loss - I still don't have a normal appetite. I just want to get better because I'm used to being in good shape."

 Matteis still doesn't know what food made her sick. Investigators in Texas have not named a source.

 But this week, health investigators in Nebraska said the outbreak there originated from prepackaged salad mix that came through "national distribution channels." Now, the CDC and the FDA are looking for the exact source of that contamination.

 Morning Rounds with Dr. LaPook: Staying safe from cyclospora outbreak

 Iowa officials also said a prepackaged salad mix is to blame, but neither state is naming the company or companies involved. Both states cite laws prohibiting investigators from naming brands or companies if it's believed the contaminated product is no longer a public health threat. Officials believe the contaminated food is likely out of the food supply.

 Matteis was given antibiotics and is slowly improving.

 "I think that we should know where the food came from," she said. "I'm skittish. I don't know where to go to eat. I'm not out of the woods yet. I'm still feeling poorly."

 We've been pushing the FDA and CDC for days on identifying the source. The CDC told us that just because a certain brand of salad is infected, it doesn't mean that brand is the ultimate source of the infection. For example, it could come from a common distributor or a common processing plant which involves a lot of other brands.

 For now they're saying they're getting closer, they're eliminating certain things and they're probably going to give us more information soon. Right now, they're not ready to say anything more. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– The cyclospora outbreak, believe to be linked to prepackaged salad in Iowa and Nebraska, just got a little ickier: Experts say that salad may not be the sole source of the stomach bug, which causes "sometimes explosive diarrhea"and has now sickened a confirmed 397 people across 16 states as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Indeed, Iowa's state epidemiologist tells USA Today that the "epidemiology looks a bit different" in other affected states. "The people who are getting ill are not necessarily the same as we saw; they're not getting sick at the same time." The FDA says it "can't speak to an ongoing investigation," though CBS News reports the FDA and CDC are "getting closer" to IDing the source. (CBS points out that even if the salad is to blame, the true root of the illness could be the plant that processed the lettuce, for instance.) Says the VP of a produce trade group, "I think the investigation has a long way to go." If you want a first-hand account of what cyclospora is like, CBS talks to a Texas woman who had diarrhea "for weeks."