Economy

• Port strike suspended: On Thursday, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association reached a tentative agreement to postpone their potentially disastrous strike until January. A conditional (and mind-numbing) 62% wage increase has been offered to the union, which will be negotiated over the next 90 days. The union released the following statement: “Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume.” This was the first time in almost 50 years that dockworkers had gone on strike. The suspension of the strike is good news for the economy, as J.P. Morgan estimated that a strike would cost the American economy upwards of $4.5 billion a day.

• Another dubious jobs report from the Biden-Harris Labor Department? By the time it gets revised downward sometime after the November 5 presidential election, the damage will already have been done, but Kamala Harris and her fellow Bidenomics proponents are no doubt giddy about today’s jobs report. According to the Labor Department, a far-better-than-expected 254,000 jobs were created in September, well above the forecasted total of 150,000, and the headline unemployment rate fell a tenth of a point, from 4.2% to 4.1%. Today’s strong report greatly decreases the likelihood of another Federal Reserve interest rate cut. As for the politics of it, the next jobs report will come out on November 1, just four days ahead of the presidential election.

Government & Politics

• Another union snub for Harris: While Kamala Harris made a show of standing with the striking Longshoremen, not all unions, which have historically supported Democrats, are willing to stand with Harris. On Thursday, the International Association of Fire Fighters said it would not be endorsing any presidential candidate this year. The union’s president, Edward Kelly, noted that the executive board voted by 1.2% against endorsement, stating that they “determined that we are better able to advocate for our members and make progress on the issues that matter to them if we, as a union, are standing shoulder-to-shoulder.” He called the decision “the best way to preserve and strengthen our unity.” That is telling. The IAFF represents over 350,000 members in Canada and the U.S.; clearly, a significant number of them do not support Harris. This decision is another significant blow to Harris from unions, the largest being the Teamsters’ choice last month to refrain from endorsing any candidate.

• Obama goes to bat for Harris: With the polls essentially showing a neck-and-neck race, Kamala Harris is hoping for a boost from former President Barack Obama to help her chances of victory down the stretch. Next week, Obama will hit the campaign trail, speaking at a number of stops across the country, starting in Pennsylvania. The Keystone State is a critical battleground state and a must-win for Harris. Obama will aim to boost Harris as well as Democrat congressional candidates. Obama also generates cash — the Harris campaign claims that he has helped to bring in over $76 million in donations. While personally popular, Obama’s record with helping get fellow Democrats elected has not been great.

• Hope for Trump in PA: There’s some good news for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. Party registration numbers show that since 2020, Democrats have lost almost 300,000 registered voters. Meanwhile, Republicans have seen an increase of roughly 50,000 registered voters. To put this in perspective, during the last presidential election, Joe Biden bested Trump in the Keystone State by just 80,000 votes. The Republican ground game there is paying off. Across the entire state, registered Democrats have dropped from 4.2 million to 3.9 million. Registered Republicans have risen to 3.6 million, while those registering as independents have seen the biggest increase — now up to 1.4 million. This data should make the Harris campaign very worried.

• Trump impeachment witness now supports him: When we think of Trump-hating impeachment witnesses, we tend to think of agenda-driven deep-state whistleblowers like Eric Ciaramella, and we also think of self-important pseudo-patriotic bureaucrats like Alexander Vindman. But we don’t tend to remember Gordon Sondland, who served as Trump’s EU ambassador and who became a star witness against him in his first impeachment hearings. Sondland appeared on MSNBC Wednesday, and he shocked host Ari Melber when asked whether he stood by a prior disavowal of Trump. “No, I don’t stand by it, and I’ll tell you why,” Sondland said. “I’ve now lived four years under the Biden-Harris policies and I have to say that those policies are not only becoming an existential threat to our country’s way of life but to our allies as well.” Apparently, Trump’s first impeachment wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

• Doug Emhoff denies report he slapped ex-girlfriend outside ritzy overseas movie event (Fox News) | Major media outlets silent on Emhoff assault allegations (Daily Wire)

• Biden student loan forgiveness plan gets win in Georgia court (The Hill)

Culture

• Melania Trump’s abortion stance aligns with other GOP first ladies: The 2024 election cycle has seen former First Lady Melania Trump play a far more visible role than she did in 2020. Lately, she’s called into question the Biden administration’s efforts to get to the bottom of the recent assassination attempt on her husband, and she’s promoted her memoir, which is due out October 8. In that memoir, she stakes out her position on abortion, which is at odds with that of her husband but in line with recent Republican first ladies. “Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” she says in a newly released video. “Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to these essential rights that all women possess from birth. Individual freedom. What does ‘my body, my choice’ really mean?” Sadly, according to Melania Trump and every other proponent of “choice,” it means that the rights of the most helpless human beings among us are subordinate to the rights of the women who carry them.

• Fourth university women’s team refuses to play against trans-identifying male (Daily Wire)

• Three officers convicted in Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating, but two acquitted of civil rights charges (NY Post)

Good News

• Federal judge blocks CA’s anti-satire deepfake law: Yesterday, our Samantha Koch noted the sorry state of free speech in the decidedly unfree state of California. There, Governor Gavin Newsom vowed to ban parody political ads on social media after Elon Musk retweeted a parody ad of Kamala Harris in which an AI-generated version of her voice was used for some hilarious self-incrimination. Recently, Newsom signed two speech-suppressing bills into law, but that didn’t sit well with U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez. He “halted California’s new law targeting deepfake satire and parody videos, saying it likely tramples on the First Amendment,” reports The Washington Times. “Mendez said deepfakes, which manipulate video to create scenes that never happened, can be abused for nefarious purposes. But he said California’s attempt to shut it down was ‘a blunt tool that hinders humorous expression and unconstitutionally stifles the free and unfettered exchange of ideas.’” Thus, it appears that the reports of the death of free speech in the Golden State have been greatly exaggerated.

Misc.

• Biden blames Hurricane Helene damage on “climate crisis,” calls deniers “brain-dead” (Christian Post)

• Pennsylvania town grapples with Trump assassination attempt ahead of his return (AP)

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