The US economy added 254,000 jobs in September for an unemployment rate of 4.1%, which the Labor Department says is virtually unchanged from August’s 4.2% rate. Greatest jobs gains came in food service and drinking places, health care, government, social assistance and construction. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]

FRIDAY 10/4/24

Dock Strike Ends – Just in time to avoid discernable damage to the Harris/Walz campaign, the International Longshoreman’s Association representing tens of thousands of East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers ended a three-day strike by tentative agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents ocean carriers and port operators. Dockworkers will receive a 62% wage increase over the six years of the contract, after its union called for 77% to the US Maritime Alliance’s 50% offer, according to NPR’s All Things Considered.

The parties also agreed to extend the current contract to January 15 to allow the two sides to negotiate other issues of the contract, including the Longshoreman’s Association’s call for a ban on potentially job-reducing automation at the ports.

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Which State for Melania? — Prior to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last July, MAGA critics were raising the issue of apparent absence of First Lady Melania Trump as her husband racked up the usual number of rallies and call-ins to Fox News. Then she showed up bigtime at the RNC as if to assure the MAGA faithful that the Trumps’ marriage was solid. 

Now in the face of GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s flippy-floppy position on abortion rights – currently, that it’s a states’ rights issue – Melania Trump has revealed she is full-out in favor of abortion rights. 

Mrs. Trump “doubled down” in her first public statement following The Guardian’s report that her memoir, Melania reads; “It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or presence from government.”

Is the October surprise coming from inside the house? … No doubt the absolute anti-abortion MAGA supporters who made nothing of Melania Trump’s disparaging remarks about Christmas decorations at the White House a few years ago will not make much, if anything, of these words in Melania when it hits bookstore shelves next Tuesday, October 8. But it does raise the question of where Melania Trump is living, or would prefer to live: New York, where abortion is legal, or Florida, where it is illegal after week six.

About Melania … CNN media correspondent Hadas Gold on Thursday reported that the publisher of Melania for Skyhouse Publishing requested the cable news network pay a fee of $250,000 to interview Melania Trump for her book. CNN declined.

--TL

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Trump on Jan. 6 – Then-President Trump tweeted about attacking Mike Pence from the White House over his vice president’s refusal to reject Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory in the formal vote count January 6, 2021, according to a 165-page filing by special counsel Jack Smith (via Politico). The filing unsealed Wednesday by Tanya S. Chutkan, US District Court judge for the District of Columbia reveals that Pence, who faced a gallows mock-up on the Capitol Grounds that day “took extensive notes about meetings” with Donald J. Trump and his outside advisors, according to NPR’s Up First podcast.

The distinction regarding Trump’s meeting with “outside” advisors is important because Smith’s filing is a response to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision that gives sitting presidents virtually unlimited immunity for official acts. Smith’s filing indicates prosecutors believe they have sufficient evidence to convict Trump in the face of the court’s summer ruling.

The filing alleges Trump engaged in an effort, not as president, but as a private citizen and candidate for office, to overturn the election, says CQ Roll Call. Chutkan is now gathering information from both sides of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump about which allegations prosecutors can pursue and which would be off-limits, as well as how to handle other outstanding issues in the case. 

The case will not go to court before the November 5 presidential election of course, and if Trump wins that election, it has no future.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa