Free Republic

Harry M. Reid needed money, and lots of it. Last spring, the Senate majority leader was looking ahead to a tough reelection fight. Polls showed that the voters back home in Nevada who sent him to Washington four times had tired of him. Republican Party fundraisers had all but declared him their No. 1 target for defeat. Taking them on would be expensive, and he wasn't drawing nearly enough cash from contributors inside Nevada. So Reid did what politicians in his position do: He picked up the phone. The senator began dialing old and new friends across the country,...

<p>VISALIA -- George Loomis will never get back his senior year of high school, but after a groundbreaking settlement Tuesday of his lawsuit against Visalia Unified School District, he says the harassment that left him physically ill and scared to go to classes should not happen to others. Loomis, a student at Golden West High School from 1996 to 2000, will receive $130,000 from the district. But the lawsuit, he said, was never about money, it was about changing the policies he said allowed cruel taunting by classmates and teachers because he is gay.</p>