Before Trump was elected, I figured there were a a range of possibilities if he won.
- On one end: he's a blowhard. He says lots of stuff he never follows up on.
- On the other end: He's dead serious this time. He's going to deport millions; put tariffs on everyone; take a sledgehammer to DEI; and nominate lunatics to his cabinet. It would be a bloodbath, but the courts and Republicans in the Senate would rein in the worst of it.
But it's been so much worse—though not on stuff he ran on. Deportations have been low and he's backed off on a bunch of tariffs. But DEI has turned into a jihad against anything that so much as mentions Black accomplishment—or women or Hispanics or anything else. USAID has been demolished for no reason and the medical research community is being torn to pieces. The entire federal workforce is being given a haircut with a blowtorch, with no apparent rhyme or reason. Elon Musk is tearing through federal agencies doing God knows what—he won't tell anyone. The righteous prosecution of a corrupt mayor has been pulled over protest as long as the mayor cooperates on deportations.
Foreign affairs is no better. Ukraine has refused Trump's demand for half its mineral wealth. Meanwhile Trump is busy punishing the AP for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the absurd Gulf of America. Trump is pursuing random tariffs that make no sense, primarily on our allies. And he continues to make periodic threats against Greenland, Panama, and, Canada.
It's governance gone mad, with no explanation or apparent reason. And we have 205 more weeks of it.
I'm hopeful your fury about current events will be a tonic to your recovery. We need your voice on this and so many issues.
Yes. So happy to see you well enough to post!
I never realized how much freedom I could have in my career until I started working like this. Last month, I earned exactly $16,536, and it still feels unreal that I can do this without the stress of a regular 9-to-5. If you’d like to see how this
works..... https://make2run221.blogspot.com/
I never realized how much freedom I could have in my career until I started working like this. Last month, I earned exactly $16,536, and it still feels unreal that I can do this without the stress of a regular 9-to-5. If you’d like to see how this
works..... https://make2run221.blogspot.com/
I take it this would be the source? https://www.policyuncertainty.com/bbd_monetary.html
It's good to see you're feeling well enough to blog. It is madness and it's only been a month. I wonder how long before the full reprecussions of his stupid random tarrifs and Musks equally stupid jihad against the federal government will start to occur. It's like being on the Titanic knowing it's going to hit an iceberg but not knowing when
I hope this post means you are feeling better, even if only some small way, and up to venting
Yes
Many of us tried to issue warnings about what was coming as it seemed pretty obvious it was going to be very very bad
But the biracial lady laughed weirdly and a handful of trans girls play HS sports, so people elected that fucking guy
Great to see you healthy enough to vent and blog! Go get them!
P.S. Also, in the "they tell you who they are" department, don't forget the executive order stopping prosecutions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "Go forth, American companies, and bribe whomever you want overseas, just as it is okay to do it here as long as it is to the "right" people."
"Take him seriously, not literally"
At times you need to take him seriously not literally. At others you need to take him literally, not seriously. Neither makes sense after a while.
Can anyone explain to me why the decisions handed down by all those judges are temporary holds? While we're waiting for someone, or some thing to stop these lunatics, the situation just get worse and worse.
And I believe felon47 is using musk to do his dirty work. I don't think he would have had the nerve to do all this stuff on his own without someone who doesn't really care and knows he can get away with anything he wants to do.
Also, are the democrats doing anything at all? Anything????
The cases can't be decided on their merits until there's a hearing regarding the facts. So the judges put a temporary hold maintaining the status quo until there's a hearing.
Re Trump and Musk - my take is that Trump is lazy and more than willing to have someone else do the dirty work for him. That way, he can watch Fox all day, and have someone else to blame if (when) things go wrong.
Re the Democrats, they seem to be playing by the old rules. Bipartisanship and collegial congeniality are useless when the other side is bent on wholesale destruction. It's time to bring out the big guns, but the Democratic leadership seems not to be willing to do so.
Dems worked out their approach between the election and mid-January. But the world has fundamentally changed over the month since inauguration, and it's pretty clear they haven't figured out a broad-based way to deal with this wholesale slashing and burning of anything resembling government (if you remember Highlander, it's like Kurgan in the old days). Jeffries going on about pocketbook issues *today* after all this was particularly inane.
Plus, I think they want to believe what the Rs tell them privately about hating what's going on. Well, sorry, Rs aren't going to be gentled into rejecting trump -- likely not at all, but a tad less unlikely if Dems stand firm and label things for what they are. The res publica matters a lot more at this point than any personal regard among congress critters.
IMO, Dem leadership most needs to understand that "public opinion" is NOT an independent variable! And that what seemed reasonable five weeks ago has been overtaken by events and needs to be ashcanned, or more accurately, downgraded and vastly supplemented. They need a crash course in showmanship and dramatic comms.
Re Musk, through his whole career it's been rare for trump to *do* the wet work with his own hands, face to face. He did a lot of firings on a fake tv show but almost never in reality -- last term it was almost always by tweet or done by someone else. Plus as you say he doesn't have the manic ADHD- and ketamine-fueled energy or attention to detail to do even a tenth of this himself. Nor the kind of mind that can grasp how the machinery interacts. Musk doesn't get that last point either. But why should that matter? (/s)
By asking for bipartisanship and not receiving it, gives them the framework to point out that Republicans are fundamentally shoving through an unpopular agenda.
I don't know why you think they can do more than that; Republicans want things to break and are breaking laws to break things. They're not bothering with bills that Democrats can filibuster.
I think they should be aggressively creating media content, in simple terms linked by a common theme. That's what I mean by not taking public opinion as an independent variable-- when they do that, they make themselves slaves to polls and always working from behind. They need to work at leading public opinion, crystallizing it, giving people names and themes for what's happening.
Polls have their place, sure, but Dems need to do what the right wing has done very successfully for decades. There's no end of good ideas out there for things they can do-- shadow agencies, shadow hearings, scorecards updated every day or so, and on and on-- in addition to the demonstrations (which are fine). Flooding the zone with tiktoks and instagrams and memes as well as doing events for old-line media.
They have what, 215 House members and 47 senators? That's plenty of people to create eye-catching content around a simple theme like "they're stealing your government so they can steal your money and shovel it to Musk and the billionaires" or something like that. Framing in broad and direct terms like that is important context for individual cases and events.
Legislatively they're doing about as much as they can, I agree. It's outside the legislature where they need to be very aggressive. Above all, they need to reach people who don't notice very much unless it's forced on them, or is funny or impassioned. People like that are used to media that overpowers them and not used to making connections on their own.
This kind of approach is important especially for next month's CR showdown and the debt limit one soon after, to set up their position of "you guys want to keep breaking things, you'll do it without us-- you have the majority, knock yourselves out." If Ds don't prime the public and media, the Rs will make Dems the bad guys, which they're good at and have been doing effectively forever.
In our age, no event explains itself. That's central to political life above all, and I don't think Dems have accepted overt politicking since maybe the 1960s, not in how they approach voters. Saying it's a "messaging" issue gets no more than a third of the way there. They have to at least try to make this stuff matter to these kinds of folks.
At least that's how I see it. Sorry for excessive length.
It seems that Trump has essentially outsourced the Presidency to Musk and the Project 2025 people while he golfs, signs executive orders and does insane press conferences
He wants all the glory, but doesn't want any of the work that usually entails. He is as lazy as he dishonest. The only thing he works at diligently is bragging about himself.
He got to go to the Super Bowl.
This weekend, he led the cars in the Beast at the Daytona 500.
Trump is acting as a Monarch, Musk his Prime Minister--without bothering with the Parliament thing.
Who wants a Parliament when you already have a Duma?
To this whole string: yep. yep. yep. yep.
Trump wears the crown.
Musk runs the technogarchy in its mission to reduce government programs to Gaza-like rubble.
The Duma sits on its hands waiting for the Project 2025 apparatchiks' orders. Really. what is the legislative agenda for this regime? Besides tax cuts? Wait! here's one: a bill was filed to make Trump's birthday a national holiday!
We are well and truly screwed.
Great to hear your voice.
I am so happy to see you up for posting. A small ray of brightness through the madness.
i'm guessing you don't have the energy to read all your blog comments, but on the off chance, i too am wishing and hoping for your recovery. seeing you post is giving us all hope. whatever happens, thank you or your years of blogging and journalism. it was and is important work.
Talk about drowning the government in a bathtub is how many decades old now? Best to focus on not why but how Heritage is being enabled to do what they've been wanting to do, and the way this will not only threaten more liberal outlooks, but also potentially more business-oriented conservative Federalists (via the cult of personality runaway populist effect).
Fortunately, Trump still only has a hardcore 30% base, so we are not Hungary, and our constitutional traditions are completely different. But efforts by the richest to keep unrestricted money flowing into elections, and thus protecting their interests, are also threatened by populism, especially when the richest guy in the world is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy himself shotgun, all while playing the rubes.
What's different this time is gutted campaign finance reform, Musk's money putting extra pressure on Congressional Republicans to go along with Trump's (mostly Heritage) agenda, social media amplifying not only mis- and dis-information from domestic sources but also sophisticated foreign propaganda outfits, and honestly some feckless leadership and bewilderment from the technocratic-corporate Democratic Party establishment, who seem to have lose sight of what blue-collar working people think and care about.
All of which should be corrected in short order, starting with campaign finance reform (again), more transparency and accountability, more freedom of information, more freedom of speech not censorship (of any kind), more emphasis on people and their rights over corporations, and otherwise doubling down on effective economic leadership, especially for the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class.
Trump still only has a hardcore 30% base, so we are not Hungary, and our constitutional traditions are completely different.
Our constitutional traditions very likely help, not hinder, a descent into authoritarianism.
https://slate.com/business/2013/10/juan-linz-dies-yale-political-scientist-explains-why-government-by-crisis-will-just-get-worse.html
One thing we have that Hungary (and other democracies that slid into authoritarianism) did not have is millions of guns lying around in non government controlled hands. It’s all well and good to destroy the brown people living in the cities, but the angry white people aren’t going to go nicely away when their government money goes away. True: they’ll probably target the wrong people in their rage, shooting up black churches and gay bars and public schools and Walmart stores and post offices, none of the people inside any of them directly created the mess at the top. But all-against-all civil war from coast to coast isn’t good for the billionaire class either, and you can’t take buildings or land with you when you flee to another unruined developed country.
Trump will love it if people start to shoot around, because that will give him actual reason to send the army in. He is certainly looking for that, even tried to do it in the first term.
One of the things that can make civil wars unpredictable is that an army is not a monolith, as any American with any knowledge of the previous civil war should know. The soldiers come from both sides, and when conflict breaks out the soldiers will split and take both sides. In other words, in a civil war the government can't count on the whole army, or even a majority of it, obeying the government. Some enterprising colonel with subordinates loyal to him rather than to Trump may well decide that the country would be better off without Trump, Vance etc. and do something about it
Just another reminder: The most important action is in the DOJ/ FBI and other law-enforcement/security agencies. These are the tools that Trump is (obviously) planning to use to destroy democracy, by eliminating (one way or another) any serious opponent.
Trump does (via Musk and others) bad things now, but he will do much worse when he succeed to completely eliminate any chalange to his position.
More madness...
"Trump administration wants Supreme Court to permit firing of whistleblower agency head." What was used to justify this?
"The administration argues that the order reinstating Dellinger for two weeks while the judge considers the case is an unacceptable intrusion on executive power. The brief cites the Supreme Court decision that gave Trump immunity from criminal prosecution and reflected a muscular view of executive power."
Will the SCOTUS serve as a check on executive overreach or just issue another blank check for Trump to do whatever the hell he wants? I'm leaning towards the latter.
Yay! Glad to hear your voice! Agreed -- it's both weird and disgusting. Hope Congressional Dem's can get their act together to relentlessly obstruct the Trump agenda.
Glad to see you posting again on this stuff. If you can stomach thinking about the Trump administration, you must be regaining some strength.
Right now we have a lawless executive branch. This is not the many "how does this conflict get resolved" Constitutional crises we've had before -- a number of them during Trump I -- this is just a branch of the government going rogue.
The question is, what happens next?
We haven't quite seen how the Trump admin will react to being stopped. There have been some court orders, many of which they are ignoring, but it will take some times for things to play out until we get to an explicit: "No, we are no longer following the Courts and/or Congress." Then we see how people respond to that and where we really are.
We could continue with a lawless executive, but that seems very unstable. I would expect efforts to conform our government to Trump's will with some rubber stamping and delegated powers. Our government isn't well suited to that, so it's anybody's guess how that would go. Or what this country will be like after its Constitutional facelift.
Scary times ahead. Biggest hope is that Trump blinks and recedes to being a traditionally bad President rather than the one who irreparably breaks government.
Holding my breath again at not seeing further posts, however minimalist, but hoping that only means that you are conserving your strength & staying calm as you overcome this latest situation. Your determination & apparent stoicism in facing numerous treatment options & outcomes has been inspiring, & many friends & strangers continue to root for you.
AMEN!!!
Yes, this.
+ 1,000,000
I'd be overjoyed just to get one regular post every few weeks until Kevin gets his strength back.
From your text to God’s ears.
Well said.
It's governance gone mad, with no explanation or apparent reason.
Well, certainly a big part of the reason is Trump himself has gone mad (I'm referring to cognitive decline). No, I'm not suggesting he's drooling into this diet coke. The term I think that best describes it (forget who coined it) is "intermittent lucidity." His higher brain functions seem largely shot, and that translates into minimal ability to think deeply, carefully, cogently, and logically.
The other big part of the explanation is: the various players pulling Trump's strings may have diverging agendas, but all of those agendas are served by destroying US state capacity (and democracy in the bargain) as we know it, so they can replace it with the utopian visions they prefer. The most obvious example is Musk: he quite literally seems to be fixated on the "need" for Mars colonies. Since the government as we know it is unlikely to give him this deliverable, said government must be destroyed. I strongly recommend the Ezra Klein-Kara Swisher talk on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xXLycFv5Gc&ab_channel=TheEzraKleinShow
So yes, a lot of this is quite literally being driven by an evil genius/mad man who will stop at nothing to force the country to fund a Mars colony project.
Yes, sounds too crazy for words. But is this really any crazier than injecting Lysol? Than using nuclear weapons to fight hurricanes? Than making Gaza into a beach resort? History doesn't have any obligation to exempt the US from the kinds of things that have happened at other times. Caligula's horse comes to mind...
"His higher brain functions seem largely shot, and that translates into minimal ability to think deeply, carefully, cogently, and logically."
Or in his second term Trump feels secure enough to be his real self.
I don't think it's "true self" so much as:
(1) His advisors/handlers learned well the lessons of the first term and long ago gamed out the plan for the current term, which above all else requires putting rubber stamps and yes men in all roles, and,
(2) Trump himself isn't worried about running again.
(I realize there are people who think he'll manage to stay in power after 2028; but even if that's true, it won't come as a result of winning a free and fair democratic election. So, yeah, I think he's a bit liberated—and thus unchained—because of the receding importance of electoral politics to his future).
3. And yes, his brain is rapidly going to mush. The Gaza/Riviera thing in my view was the final, needed proof. That "idea" would have been laughed out of The Onion's morning pitch meaning. Oh, and he's apparently now pushing for a requirement that Ukraine (not Russia, UKRAINE!) pay massive war reparations. You can't make this shit up. He's loco.
".. his brain is rapidly going to mush. The Gaza/Riviera thing in my view was the final, needed proof. "
That is idiotic.
With the people that it was aimed as, it worked well for him.
He is destorying the US democracy, and stll has ~50% favorability rating, which shows he is still a skilled bamboozler.
His decline hasn't really affected his ability to bamboozle yet. Probably due to the fact that a fair percentage of his cult will believe anything he says. If you're being bamboozled by a man like Trump you're either in on it, you just dont care, or you're as dumb as a bag of rocks. When he speaks, to me he sounds like any random late night infomercial spokesperson. Not even a good one.
"Probably due to the fact that a fair percentage of his cult will believe anything he says. "
The favorability rating is far larger than the size of MAGA. There are many others that are still bamboozled by him. Maybe they are "bag of rocks", but bamboozling large number of "bag of rocks" better than anybody else requires skill too.
He is destorying the US democracy, and stll has ~50% favorability rating...
He asked his people about using nuclear weapons to target hurricanes, Yehouda! He's not well.
Just say "no" to your pathetic hero worship of Trump God Emperor.
The regime is dangerous and ruthless, yes. Trump himself is an obese near 80 year old with a lifetime of fast food and stimulant abuse—and the seriously compromised brain health that results from that. He's also got a significant family history of serious, relatively early dementia (father, sister).
"... your pathetic hero worship .."
It is not worship, it is a realistic view of the facts of the world, which you simply ignore.
The fact that he talks bulshit doesn't tell you that anything about what he thinks, because he never says what he thinks, and talking bulshit is part of his method, and always has been.
What important is what he does. And what he does is creating a mechanism to suppress any opposition, using the DOJ, FBI and other agencies. People like you, that cannot grasp this fact, make it easier for him. That is part of the explanation of how he reached that far.
i get what you are saying, but I don’t see it as systematic — TFM wants control of the DOJ and FBI so he can punish his enemies (which include anyone who has ever slighted him in any way). It’s not part of a master plot to suppress dissent, though he will react against it just because he is a thin-skinned, emotionally immature narcissist.
" It’s not part of a master plot to suppress dissent"
Correct.
It is a simple and straightforward plot to suppress dissent. The skill is in making people ignore it.
You mistake pique for plotting.
Too clever for me.
Do you think that, for example, somebody piqued him so he got angry and decided to appoint Bondy as a result, or something like that?
He has been incensed at the Jan 6 Committee, Jack Smith, NYAG Tish James, DA Fani Willis, Joe Biden,and more. Bondi and Patel are on record as intending to go after his enemies. That’s all he needed to hear.
And you think once he they finished with this target they will stop?
Anyway, that is a clearly plan (simple and straightforward).
Has he ever thought deeply, carefully, cogently and logically? He mostly speaks off the cuff with little to no thought. Unless he's reading a prepared speech.
I mean, he did run a sprawling criminal enterprise for several decades and the law never laid a finger on him until 2024.
He's no Einstein, sure. And he's always been bereft of wide swathes of policy knowledge. He's obviously very poorly read. But I do think he had a reasonable level of functional intelligence at one point, as well as a kind of animalistic shrewdness, at least in terms of self-preservation.
I think the evidence now suggests his brain is pretty ill.
I've always thought of Trump being smart in the same way that we'd say that a rat or raccoon is smart--not particularly intelligent in any absolute sense, but something with a shrewdness and singlemindeness that means you have to watch it constantly to make sure it doesn't get somewhere it doesn't belong and wreck up the place.
but something with a shrewdness and singlemindeness
More or less my take. I just have doubts that now, at the cusp of 80, after a lifetime of bad eating and drug abuse (and with quite possibly a genetic predisposition to dementia), he's still got that latter kind of intelligence to any great degree.
My impression is to a great extent he's now on auto-pilot with a lot of his takes and pronouncements (a kind of brain muscle-memory, if you will), and is only intermittently lucid. Many of the things he's said and proposed in recent years, as well as his general comportment on the campaign trail, strike me as much more "crazy" than "crazy like a fox." But a lot of people conflate his base's hero-worship of all things Trump with the latter (crazy like a fox). Yes, it works for him. But it works despite his lunacy, not because of it. He could take a dump in public at the Lincoln Memorial and his fanbois would claim it's some kind of brilliant political theater.
In truth Trump's lack of judgment and overall cognitive decline have hurt him. I think it's overwhelmingly likely, for instance, that a shrewder, more calculating Trump could have won a bigger victory last November, with longer coattails, especially in the House.
He could keep 99.9% of his support intact while being very modestly less alienating to other voters. But he's not capable of doing that kind of political calculus. A working filter requires a healthy brain. But he no longer has that.
The amazing thing to me is that he does exactly what you say, he speaks off the cuff with little or no thought. But when he says something exceptionally dumb like A-bombing hurricanes or turning on the spigot and bringing water from the Pacific Northwest to California, and then is confronted with how dumb it is, he never-ever backs down. He keeps repeating the insane thoughts until he wears down the people who know what he is saying is absurd and actually gets his supporters to believe with him.
The thing that’s different from his last presidency is Elon Musk. Without Musk’s ability to destroy our institutions this term would be pretty much like the last one, careening from one weird thing to another. Musk is the wild card here.
"Musk. Without Musk’s ability to destroy our institutions this term would be pretty much like the last one, "
Really?
You missed what happens in the DOJ and FBI (and DNI and DOD). That the main difference. In the first term he didn't have the means the destroy democracy. This time he is making sure he does have these means.
It will be interesting to know why you ignore it.
I think those things were less likely to have happened without Musk. I think his money is the backup to Trump’s threats to primary any Republican who opposes him.
You still ignore the danger that weaponizing the DOJ and FBI present.
That is why Trump succed to go so far. Even those that realize that he a piece of shit are getting bamboozled to look at the wrong issues.
He doesn't Musk to threaten Republicans. he does need the DOJ/FBI to threaten (and more: he will kill if "needed") democrats.
I’m not. I just think it would have been less likely to be as bad as it is without Musk. The “flooding the zone” thing is working because of Musk.
I hope you're doing fine, all things considered. It's been a couple of days since you posted this and my worry-meter is back up to a 9.
+100. I re-check KD's home page several times a day hoping for some good news.
> ...my worry-meter is back up to a 9.
Mine, too. Hoping for the best.
I see I’m not the only one. I too have been refreshing the page several times a day.
My own worry-meter hit 10 a half-hour ago (10AM CST) when I got a 522 error trying to connect to this blog: Local browser (mine) working, Cloudfare server working, host (jabberwocking.com) not working. But it came back a few minutes later. Maybe Kevin is just having a little fun with us.
Same.
Sometimes sleep, rest and relaxation the best remedy in these situations, a long with timely medical intervention and attention.
Oh, and tea, broth, soup!
May you recover fully. May we hold out. May America recover.
"You grieve for those for whom you should not grieve.
The wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead.
Never at any time was I not, nor thou, nor these princes of men
Nor shall we ever cease to be.
The unreal has no being
The real never ceases to be."
From the Bhagavadgita,
as found on Orage's tombstone
The people we love
live on in our memory
...and in the witness of the love
we bring to life in that memory.
We learn love
...and pass it on.
You have made an enormous difference Kevin...we all cannot thank you enough.
We haven’t heard anything from Kevin for several days now. Anybody besides me starting to worry?
Like others, I keep checking back for a new post from KD, even though I know he must rest and recover. Still, here I am, holding my small candle high.
I am feeling the same as many of you others. Checking in a couple times a day and feeling quite concerned with the lack of updates/posts. Kevin, we are sending thoughts your way through the universe of mystery. Thank you for all you have done for the last 20 years and beyond.
Here is President Donald "Sharp as a Tack" Trump conducting an interview. This pretty much screams "Trump is a puppet and Musk is the puppeteer!"
https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1892059203696480580
Absolutely awful optics for Trump. Not that his base will give a fuck...
The question is what the 20-30% of the voters that are not MAGA but voted for him will see in it. If it doesn't put them off, then it worked for him. If it does put them off, then it didn't work him.
What do you think: did it put these people off?
I would agree he is a puppet if he lets Musk do anything in the DOJ or FBI.
Musk isn't the only puppet master. I fear Trump will throw Ukraine to the wolf, aka Putin. As far as NATO goes, I could see Trump pulling us out of it just for spite. Putin found a great patsy in Trump.
He's not going to touch SSI, Medicare and Medicaid. lol. Right. He's such a dishonest fuktard.
With no response from Kevin, the needle on my worry meter is pegged in the red zone. Although I have never met him, he's been a voice of reason and the first blog I read every day since he was Calpundit. I am hoping for the best and fearing the worst. So I worry.
As far as Republicans go, their only goal is: MAKING RICH PEOPLE RICHER.
It's the ultimate explanation for everything they do.
Waiting, worried but hopeful, for your recovery sir. Do whatever it takes and be strong like we know you are.
The society of occasionally-depressant, believe-reality-even-when-it-sucks, chemo-enduring-but-still-here semi-curmudgons misses your presence in these challenging times sir 🙂
I also worry about Kevin. Another concern: if the worst should happen, who will notify us? The jabberwocking.com site may just go idle and we may have to rely on Wikipedia to learn of Kevin's status on the planet.
As far as Republicans go, you may be right. Being in Trump's thrall doesn't explain everything. For example, about 15 Republicans in Congress are pushing back against his nominee for Secretary of Labor because not anti-union enough. Like I said, the only resistance comes from those who think Mr. Tangerine Man isn't sufficiently right-wing.
I'm with you Batchman, I fear we won't ever know what happens if Kevin loses this battle. That said, I have not stopped praying for our intrepid graph maker and analyzer par excellence. If well wishes were money Kevin would be sitting on a pile of it right now.
I think it's reasonable to assume that Kevin showed Marian how to update the blog in case of the worst. Not that that would be her number one priority of course.