Free Republic

It's a fee. No wait, it's a tax. Actually ... Attempt to define $3 water charge comes up dry SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's waterworks plan, which could send millions of flood-control dollars to San Joaquin County, hinges in part on a $3 charge that would appear on a homeowner's water bill every month. Schwarzenegger calls this charge a fee. Others say it's a tax. While this debate might mean little to a Stockton homeowner faced with forking over $36 a year, it is so politically charged that few at the Capitol will discuss it openly. The flood-control legislation begins...

Albany -- Is this a Senate race or country music? Cheating husbands. An out-of-wedlock child. Prison bars. Strong, independent women standing by their wayward men. The stuff of late nights, neon-lit jukeboxes and smoky roadhouses? Not quite. These women are Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeanine Pirro, both lawyers and both with homes in a tony suburb north of New York City, and they're on a possible political collision course. Clinton is the former first lady seeking a second term as New York's junior Democratic senator, and just possibly eyeing a run for the White House in 2008. Pirro, a district...