Justice-Integrity.org

The nationally prominent voting accuracy investigator Bev Harris is warning that even simple caucus votes are subject to gross miscalculation -- and so voters should fear result-changing error and fraud in remaining elections this year.

Harris, below, is a guest Feb. 23 on my radio show Washington Update. She will describe serious flaws in the recent Maine GOP caucus. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it State officials announced as the winner Mitt Romney by a margin of fewer than 200 votes over Ron Paul. The totals didn't add up by the standards of elementary school math, Harris maintains. This underscores vastly more serious problems that arise, she says, when unverifiable electronic voting machines are used in elections.  

In 2002, Harris authored Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century, a pioneering book on how electronic voting can enable enormous mistakes and outright fraud that change results in major races. Two years later, she founded Black Box Voting, a non-partisan, non-profit voting watchdog group. It provides practical advice for voters around the nation who fear wrong results -- and the traditional media's reluctance to cover the topic.

I can confirm her concern. A reporter for a national newspaper assigned to cover the topic told me privately last summer that his editor spiked his research on allegations of electronic fraud in 2004 Presidential vote tallies because the paper, in fear of alarming readers, shouldn't report anything unless it had stone-cold proof of fraud. By that standard, a newspaper could barely report anything on any controversy. 

On Feb. 23, listeners have a chance for questions. Join her, co-host Scott Draughon and me at noon (ET) on the show heard live nationwide on the MTL (My Technology Lawyer) radio network Scott founded a decade ago. To ask a question, call toll-free to (866) 685-7469 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The show is available by archive shortly after its end. Mac users need “Parallels.”

The Supreme Court will not formally adopt the judicial code of conduct that governs the actions of other federal judges, says Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. He thus rejected a request by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are concerned about lack of oversight. Roberts, below, continued his stonewalling on the issue by writing a one-paragraph letter explaining that he has already explained in his year-end report that the judicial Code of Conduct does not apply to the Supreme Court.

As we reported at the time, Roberts released his report at 6 p.m. on a Saturday night during the New Year's Day weekend on Dec. 31 saying that the court's members are “jurists of exceptional integrity and experience.” Therefore, Roberts wrote in his whitewash, they do not need an enforceable code to follow ethical principles. Roberts claimed that a code would violate the Constitution's separation of powers language even if it were self-enforcing.

The chief justice's letter went to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (VT). Leahy and four other Democrats had urged Roberts to adopt a code if the justices, as claimed, are already are following it. As background, more than 50 Democrats in the House minority have urged without success for their House Judiciary Committee colleagues to launch an impeachment inquiry for Justice Clarence Thomas, a Republican like Roberts.

Over the years, Thomas falsified his sworn annual judicial disclosure statements by omitting some $1.6 million in money and gifts, most of it to his wife, Virginia, for advocating conservative policies. Click here for chart of Justice Thomas’disclosure forms. Click here to read Common Cause’s statement prepared for Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Thomas has ignored requests for comment aside from occasional and largely oblique denials of irregularities.

Meanwhile, a House Committee Republican chairman is creating controversy by oversight hearings on many other issues. Also, a lower court federal judge in Washington dismissed charges in a major major federal investigation of foreign agents allegedly engaged in corruption. See details below.

Federal prosecutors wrongly indicted a New Jersey mayoral candidate for a second time on corruption charges, according to a Newark federal judge who dismissed all charges in a political prosecution that helped former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie win his state’s governorship in 2009. Authorities improperly indicted unsuccessful Jersey City mayoral candidate Louis Manzo last year, U.S. District Judge José Linares ruled on Feb 17.

The dismissal frees the now-impoverished Manzo, left, from the charges he describes as "ruining my life" three years ago. Also, it vindicates his battle against prosecutors who had spent vast sums to convict him. The defendant's victory shames the Bush-appointed Christie, his successors from the Obama administration and those in the news media who accepted the prosecution version of events without digging deeper. Christie, at right, has long been touted in the media as a politician of national stature. But political reporters who focus on successful image-making make scant effort to examine such substance as his vast spending as a prosecutor. This occurred both in local, politically driven cases such as Manzo's and in the tens of millions of dollars in no-bid contacts that Christie provided to his former Justice Department cronies for supervising companies willing to work out deals to avoid indictment.

Also, Manzo's victory provides rare hope to other defendants nationwide who can now hope for justice if they are fortunate enough to find a fair judge, such as the Bush-appointed Linares. Linares has twice thrown out charges from prosecutors who were trying to create new law by prosecuting Manzo without a basis in legislation.

"This case," said Manzo, a Democratic former state assemblyman, "hopefully will stand a long time for the proposition that federal prosecutors can't come into a locality and selectively target local candidates -- thereby disrupting local elections with a federal political agenda." He expressed thanks to the judge, whom he described as providing a "scholarly and fair" judgment in a 60-page decision.

A London judge has ruled against a billionaire member of the Rothschild banking family who sought huge damages because a newspaper reported he was the "puppet-master" of a leading European Union (EU) leader. Reports of their relationship created a scandal in the UK by illustrating the tight ties between globe-trotting billionaires and the regulator.

In a ruling of global importance to preserve the slender media scrutiny of the powerful that exists today, the judge rejected Nathaniel "Nat" Rothschild’s $1.5 million pound lawsuit. Rochschild claimed the Daily Mail libeled him by reporting on his 2005 trip to Russia with two rich business partners and then-EU Trade Minister Peter Mandelson. The latter, since elevated to the United Kingdom's nobility as Lord Mandelson, is shown above right in a photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Rothschild and the EU official met Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska, whose net worth Forbes reported in 2008 as $28 billion. Deripaska (left, shown in a Wikipedia photo) is CEO of RusAl (or "Rusal"). Also, he is Rothschild's business partner. Mandelson is a UK Labor Party careerist with a history of socializing with the wealthy while holding posts regulating their businesses.

Rothschild asserted that their January visit to Siberia was merely social. Part of the evidence -- that the VIP visitors were warmed in a custom of the region by a young man who flogged them with birch branches -- has encouraged more news coverage. The headline in the UK Independent over the weekend, for example, was, Rothschild loses libel case, and reveals secret world of money and politics.