Free Republic

ASHINGTON — Authorities are investigating whether Mitt Romney’s private email account was hacked. On Tuesday, the website Gawker reported that an anonymous hacker had signed into Romney’s personal Hotmail account. Gawker reported that the hacker guessed the answer to a security question about Romney’s favorite pet in order to gain access to the account and change the password. The anonymous hacker told the website that Romney’s account on DropBox, a file sharing service, also was compromised.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- A former college student charged with hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail account fears some jurors in heavily Republican East Tennessee could be dazzled when the conservative star testifies. -snip- Convictions on all four felony charges - identity theft, wire fraud, intentionally accessing Palin's e-mail account without authorization and obstructing an FBI investigation - could send Kernell to prison for up to 50 years. "If I was the individual being charged I would be concerned, particularly the other party," East Tennessee State University political analyst David Briley said. "Politics and religion are pretty close to the vest here."

The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers yesterday that a deputy director later "dictated" how she was supposed to cover it up. Vanessa Niekamp, an administrator for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' Office of Child Support and a 15-year state employee, said that when Deputy Director Doug Thompson came into her office, "He appeared very upset, his neck was bright red, and he was shaking. He closed my door." Thompson told her she must write an e-mail to the agency's information-security officer, and then...

The saga of the scandal-plagued Democratic fundraiser with ties to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took another strange twist after he mailed a suicide note last week to a legal organization. A person who saw the letter said Thursday that the note from Hong Kong-born Norman Hsu explicitly stated that he "intended to commit suicide." The person declined to reveal the exact phrasing, but said it was not rambling in nature. The individual spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it. The letter arrived at the New York offices of...

BOSTON (AP) -- The campaign headquarters of Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney was burglarized over the weekend and a television and computers stolen. A campaign spokesman for the former Massachusetts governor described the crime as "a routine burglary" and did not believe it was politically motivated. "Several laptops and a TV were stolen," said campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. "All the computers are password-enabled and the hard drives are encrypted. The only thing they're good for is parts." The Boston Police Department was called to the scene, an office building overlooking Boston Harbor in the city's North End, but a report...

Kathleen Willey, the woman who says Bill Clinton groped her in the Oval Office, claims she was the target of an unusual house burglary over the weekend that nabbed a manuscript for her upcoming book, which promises explosive revelations that could damage Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Willey told WND little else was taken from her rural Virginia home as she slept alone upstairs – electronics and jewelry were left behind – and she believes the Clintons were behind it. The break-in, she said, reminded her of the widely reported incident 10 years ago in which she claimed she was...

A new book by David Horowitz and Richard Poe has enraged the Left and alarmed many conservatives. It exposes the machinations of a radical clique working at the highest levels of government and finance to undermine American power. That book is The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. It hit the New York Times bestseller list in its first week in print. Here to tell us about The Shadow Partyis co-author Richard Poe, our esteemed colleague at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, where he serves as director of research. Mr....

<p>The emails keep pouring in with this plea: Investigate Gannongate! These messages are obviously part of a campaign among liberal Internet activists who believe the controversy concerning Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) has not received sufficient media attention. Gannon/Guckert was a conservative reporter for a marginal news outfit who obtained a daily pass to the White House press office and who also apparently was seeking customers as a gay, military-oriented prostitute. Serious questions do remain as to why and how the Bush White House's press operation granted access to Gannon/Guckert, a correspondent for the Talon News. Should a fellow with a fake identity--and a questionable background--be allowed into presidential press conferences? Talon News was connected to GOPUSA, an organization run by Texas-based Republican activist Bobby Eberle, and Gannon/Guckert routinely asked softball questions of Bush's press secretaries during their daily White House briefings. But throughout this scandal, I have wondered if the Gannon affair may be smaller than it seems. I expressed several concerns in an earlier column. Still, in response to the emails, I decided to heed the call and look further. What I found leads me to ask--gasp!--if Gannon/Guckert, on a few but not all fronts, has received a quasi-bum rap.</p>