Lazy Saturdays

It’s a lazy Saturday here. I took advantage of the cooler weather to give the chicken coops a clean out, then enjoyed my morning coffee with a chicken on my lap.

Pepper hadn’t quite made it onto my lap at this point.....

I need to catch up on some reading and I’m hopeful there will be time for knitting. I’ve just started watching Only Murders in the Building on Hulu and I’m pretty sure I’m the last person who hasn’t watched it (so no spoilers), but in addition to being a great watch, it’s a lovely excuse to spend time knitting.

You’ll have to forgive me if you’re not a knitter (but seriously, you could become one!) because this is the time of year when my thoughts turn to yarn. Big squishy skeins of cashmere. A couple of weeks ago, I started a couple of my students off on first knitting projects over brunch. Something simple, just a garter stitch scarf. But I wanted them to be special, so I dug around in my yarn stash and came up with enough cashmere for striped scarves. They were so pretty once they picked colors out and started knitting, that I had to cast on too.

Note to self: Sometimes the simple things are the most satisfying.

If you’re a knitter, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment on this post telling me what’s on your needles!

So, everyone at my house is happy, except for Harry.

Harry, if you’re counting, is one of four Vance cats, three of whom are Maine Coons. He’s getting up on in years, and sometimes fur care gets away from him, so he benefits from a little professional grooming. This is his second lion cut. He is not a fan and I’m afraid I’ll be paying the price for visiting this indignity upon him for some time.

I’ll be back tomorrow with some updates on the Mar-a-Lago saga. But, to catch you up, late last night, lawyers for Trump and DOJ submitted some suggested names for possible special masters.

One of the four, a Trump submission (each side offered two), is a non-starter as he’s the husband of a Trump-appointed judge to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That’s far too much of a conflict of interest to merit any serious consideration, and an irresponsible suggestion by Trump’s lawyers. The remaining three are all retired judges with good reputations. Two are from New York. Judge Barbara Jones was the special master following both the search of former Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen’s office and later, the Rudy Giuliani search. She is highly regarded, as is Judge Raymond Dearie, who won a nod of approval from former Mueller team prosecutor Andrew Weissman, despite being a suggestion from the Trump camp.

New York City being a remarkably small world in some ways, it’s possible that either or both of the New York judges could have crossed paths with Trump or his family along the way. That could lead people to speculate about perceived conflicts, something it’s important to avoid even the appearance of at all costs here. Whether or not that will factor remains to be seen, but I’d expect to see at least some discussion.

One of DOJ’s suggestions, retired D.C. Court of Appeals Judge Tom Griffith, would also be a good pick (and full disclosure, we went to law school together and I think highly of him). Griffith was a conservative jurist, appointed to the bench by George W. Bush. Following his retirement, he introduced his colleague Ketanji Brown Jackson at her Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. Griffith’s conservative bona fides make him another attractive choice. But, unfortunately, we know that whoever the special master is, if they do anything short of calling it straight down the line for Trump, they’re likely to face abusive behavior from his base.

One other flag from the joint filing regarding the special master: Trump wants to split the cost of the process with DOJ. DOJ responded that, “as the party requesting the special master, Plaintiff [Trump] should bear the additional expense of the Special Master’s work.” The cost here won’t be insignificant. Following the Cohen search, the special master received approximately $330,000 for just one month’s work. As a taxpayer, I’m not interested in footing the bill for this unnecessary effort to accommodate the former president.

More on that when we head into the new week.

A good Substack read if you’re in the mood for something different: My dear friend Marissa Rothkopf writes a newsletter called The Secret Life of Cookies and it’s one of my favorites, in fact, it was what brought me to Substack in the first place. Her most recent column includes a recipe for Lemon Bars that I’m hoping to try out this week.

If you beat me to it, let me know how they are? This is also a good weekend to ask people around you if they’re registered to vote, because we all need to turn out in November if we want to keep the Republic.

We’re in this together,

Joyce