'BradCast' 12/12/2016: (Guest: Marcy Wheeler on reported U.S. intel agency allegations about Russia interfering in the Presidential election; 'Recount' ends in WI, denied again in MI, PA)
Over the weekend, Washington Post and New York Times reported on unnamed sources alleging a 'secret' 'consensus' of U.S. intelligence agencies charging Russia tried to interfere with the Presidential election in order to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. National security journalist Marcy Wheeler cites some concerns about the details of those allegations, echoing what proved to be blatantly misrepresented and cherry-picked intelligence allegations charging that Iraq had WMD, by the George W. Administration in their run-up to the Iraq War. We discuss what it is that we know -- and don't know -- concerning the newly-reported allegations, who has an interested in forwarding them, why they are arising now, and how those concerns can possibly square with both Democratic and Republican resistance to human verification of the 2016 Presidential election results in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Speaking of which, on Friday, a split MI Supreme Court decision denied a hearing of Green Party candidate Jill Stein's appeal to a decision that stopped the state's disastrous paper ballot hand-count last week. And today, a federal court in Pennsylvania denied Stein's lawsuit seeking a statewide hand-count of paper ballots and forensic analysis of unverifiable voting systems used across most of the state. Also today, the state of Wisconsin completed its partial statewide hand-count and certified Donald Trump as the winner of that state's electoral vote. All amidst repeated, coordinated, well-funded and familiar efforts by Republicans and Team Trump to block any and all verification of Presidential election results in all three states.