Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Rep. Barney Frank is among the first Democrats to publicly say Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s family background, including the pregnancy of her unwed teenage daughter, should be fair game for campaign discussion. "They’re the ones that made an issue of her family," Frank, D-Mass., said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The mayor of San Francisco has obtained the password to the city's multimillion-dollar computer network password from a disgruntled employee during a secret jailhouse visit, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. On Monday night, Mayor Gavin Newsom met Terry Childs, a Department of Telecommunications and Information Services employee charged with computer tampering, in a secret meeting and walked away with the password to the city's new FiberWAN (Wide Area Network), the Chronicle said. The system stores such records as officials' e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail bookings. Childs has been held since July 13 and had reportedly...