Back in the day Brett Schundler was the rising star of the NJ GOP, making his mark as the uber-conservative Mayor heavily Democratic Jersey City. He made his name in the ‘cut every benefit cut every everything’ wing of the party.

But today when Gov. Christie (R) asked him for his resignation as state Ed Commissioner result of errors and misrepresentations from Schundler in a matter costing the state $400 million in federal “Race to the Top” money he asked if he could be fired instead so he could collect unemployment benefits.

This is just a quick heads up that we’re going to be rolling out some changes later today in how you can log in to the site to comment on articles. More details in a post to follow. But basically it will allow us to create a more ‘robust’ login ‘experience’ (i.e., it will consistently work) as well as help us to crack down on the evil scourge of comment spam. Finally, it will also allow you to login to TPM using other ‘identities’ or ‘logins’ you have from other major sites. And for the translation of that: that means you can login with your gmail account, your Twitter account, Facebook, etc. As we’ll detail in post later today we’ve built the new system with your privacy, control and ease of use as our top concerns. More details to follow.

Hedge fund managers powwow in Greenwich on how to help GOP candidates in November.

Cabbie slasher moved from Rikers Island to psych ward at Bellevue.

Why the recession is killing the Dems … and why over the last two years they’ve managed to let the Republicans win the argument against the policies that might do anything about it.

Mayor Bloomberg goes on the Daily Show to talk about the ‘mosque’ controversy. It’s all politics. Watch.

Jon Stewart, on Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. Watch.

The Cardinals are in town this weekend for a series against the Nationals, which I usually would manage to resist mentioning (Go Cards!). But this is also the weekend of Glenn Beck’s big Aug. 28 rally, and the St. Louis paper is reporting that Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and star first baseman Albert Pujols (who has a chance to win the Triple Crown this season, which hasn’t been done since Carl Yastrzemski pulled it off in 1967 — but I digress) will be attending. Pujols is being honored at the event, and La Russa is introducing him, the paper reports. Read More

Remember Brent Furer? Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) top aide who kept his job after a knife slashing attack on his girlfriend? Turns out Vitter’s lawyer’s been sending threateningly worded letters to Louisiana newspapers telling them to back off their coverage of Furer’s crime.