Media

Herbert may be less stressed these days, but he's back in the hot seat in the latest installment of POLITICO's "Answer This"

Tell us your favorite joke.

From Steven Wright: I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one. … It wasn’t doing what I was doing.

When’s the last time you used profanity?

A little while ago. It’s a terrible term that my buddies and I used with pathological frequency in high school, and I haven’t broken the habit yet.

Representative Sandy Levin is one of the top Democrats in Congress when it comes to trade issues and given that he represents Michigan -- where the economy has been battered by globalization -- it is no surprise that he has long taken a critical stance on free trade agreements. But Levin is not entirely hostile to such pacts.

According to a recent Pew poll, evangelical Christians believe they're losing influence in the United States. That's far from clear; From 2004 to 2008, the evangelical share of the vote in the Presidential election increased, from 20 percent to 23 percent.

New York – Today’s narrow 5-4 decision in McComish v. Bennett continues the Roberts Court’s retreat on fairness in elections, striking down trigger provisions that allowed publicly financed candidates in Arizona to receive additional funds for their campaigns when their spending was outstripped by their privately financed opponents.   

One longtime liberal voice in Albany, former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester, takes a severe view of Cuomo's first months. He thinks Cuomo, who says he hasn't shut the door on running for president in 2016, is playing two sides in the political game.

I have been predicting for the past few months that as part of a bipartisan budget deal Republicans will agree to raise revenues by reducing tax breaks and then cloak this retreat in high-minded rhetoric about "tax reform."

Today, six in ten employers say that they check the credit histories of some or all prospective employees before making final hiring decisions. This traps many jobseekers in a devastating catch-22.

Here's what I don't get about House Majority Leader Eric Cantor quitting the budget talks because he opposes any tax increases: Nearly every conservative budget plan out there -- including the Ryan plan -- embraces a fiscal scenario in which taxes consume a greater share of GDP than they do today. Everyone on the right knows taxes will have to increase somewhat, so why doesn't Cantor just accept the inevitable -- especially with the stakes so high?

Consider the details.