One of my favorite albums as a teenager in the mid-80s was REO Speedwagon’s Wheels Are Turnin’. It’s best remembered today for the #1 hit “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” although personally I preferred the lesser hit singles “One Lonely Night” and “I Do’Wanna Know”. The album ends with the title track, whose opening stanza goes:

I’ve been sittin’ back quietly

Watchin’ as my spirit fades

As all of my attempts to do rightly

Get treated like some kind of terrorist raids

And then later the bridge, going into the chorus, goes:

When you’re cut down to the bone

You bleed but it heels

You’re hurt but still you must carry on

‘Cuz the wheels are turnin’…

I feel like that’s where we are right now.

My wife commented to me tonight that she actually felt more traumatic about events yesterday, the day after the insurrection, than she did the day of — because yesterday it seemed like all of these terrible things had happened and yet nothing was happening swiftly in reaction to it. But today, it seems like the wheels are turnin’ again.

Late yesterday Education Secretary DeVos announced that she would resign, effective today. There was criticism of her from the left today, to the effect that resigning from the Cabinet was an act of cowardice, relative to the alternative of remaining on the Cabinet and fighting to invoke the 25th Amendment. In response, there is reporting today that DeVos resigned after concluding that Pence was unwilling to pursue action under the 25th Amendment. Pence himself is maintaining radio silence on the subject.

Instead, momentum is building towards impeachment. Pelosi said in a letter today that if Trump does not resign immediately, the House will commence impeachment proceedings, reportedly on Monday. A draft article of impeachment has been released, where the sole article is “incitement of insurrection,” focusing on the events of January 6th but also bringing up the January 2nd call between Trump and Raffensperger (which in and of itself arguably represents grounds for impeachment) as relevant context.

Tonight the Washington Post has a story about a McConnell memo regarding how the Senate might respond to a new House impeachment action, and it’s fascinating. Apparently under Senate rules, it would require unanimous consent in order for the Senate to take up any “new business” next week, and one imagines there is at least one Republican Senator who could be convinced to object to starting an impeachment trial next week. As such, McConnell envisions that the earliest an impeachment trial could commence is an hour after Biden’s inauguration.

On the one hand, that means that the impeachment path would not lead to the eviction of a sitting President, which would mean Trump would remain in office for another 12 days, could still exercise his pardon power during that time, etc. Which could suggest impeachment is pointless.

Except, on some level the more important reasons to impeach Trump are: first, setting the precedent that this type of behavior is unacceptable; and second, making Trump ineligible to run for President in the future. And this is where delaying the trial until Trump is out of office might actually increase the likelihood that the necessary two-thirds majority of the Senate to convict could be obtained. One imagines there is a subset of Republican Senators who are concerned about the optics among their constituents of forcibly removing Trump from office, but might be willing to take symbolic action against Trump after his term was completed, particularly if doing so helped clear the Republican primary field for 2024…

Earlier today Senator Murkowski became the first Republican Senator to say that Trump should resign. Her interview also suggested that she is less than fully committed to remaining part of the Republican party.

Another productive piece of news today is that Twitter finally gave a permanent ban to Trump’s account. Also, Perdue finally conceded to Ossoff, about two days after media organizations had called the election.

Loeffler finally conceded to Warnock a couple of hours ago. At this point Warnock’s margin is over 79K votes, or 50.9-49.1%. Ossoff’s margin is now over 41K votes, or 50.5-49.5%. Assuming both races remain outside the recount threshold, Georgia is supposed to certify the special election results no later than January 22nd, or two days after the inauguration. As such, Biden may face a Republican-controlled Senate for the first day or two of his administration, not that that should matter much.

There has been lots of continued talk this afternoon about 25th Amendment action and/or impeachment, with Speaker Pelosi echoing Senator Schumer’s views from this morning. There is some reporting to the effect that Pence is not inclined to pursue a 25th Amendment course of action. Very recently the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed board published a surprisingly rational editorial, “Donald Trump’s Final Days,” calling on Trump to resign. The editorial also posits that “this week has probably finished [Trump] as a serious political figure” and “it is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.”

Trump did release a video statement this afternoon, which included him acknowledging that “a new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th.” So, that’s something, I suppose.

Transportation Secretary Chao, who is of course Majority Leader McConnell’s wife, has announced that she will resign from the Cabinet on Monday in light of yesterday’s events.

My initial reaction was that her resignation was bad news, as it seemed to reduce the likelihood of successful 25th Amendment action by the Cabinet; but now that I see she isn’t actually resigning until Monday, it still leaves time for her to participate in a putsch. Right now there are only 12 confirmed Cabinet members (including Chao) and 3 acting Cabinet members, and there is some controversy over whether acting Cabinet members would get to vote.

Speaking of acting Cabinet members: After Acting DHS Secretary Wolf (who is abroad right now) called for Trump to condemn yesterday’s violence, Trump responded by announcing that he has withdrawn Wolf’s nomination to become permanent DHS Secretary. Which is purely symbolic, since the Senate had no intention of acting on that nomination before Biden takes over, but certainly is spiteful. The official White House position is that the withdrawal of the nomination is unrelated to Wolf’s comments; but, as the 46th (or will it be 47th?) President would say, “C’mon man!”

I suppose by this point I’m not blogging about the “election” per se, but about the potential for “regime change” in a more generalized sense… But it still seems connected enough to the election to continue with the “Election 2020” moniker.

A few minutes ago Senator Schumer, who I suppose we could call the Majority Leader-in-waiting after yesterday, said “this President should not hold office one day longer,” saying that Pence should invoke the 25th Amendment and, failing that, Congress should re-convene to impeach Trump.

At least one Republican Congressmen, Adam Kinzinger from the Illinois 16th (a ‘downstate’ district but whose scope includes Rockford and DeKalb), has also openly called this morning for invocation of the 25th Amendment.

Shortly before 4am Eastern time, Congress officially completed the counting of the electoral votes, confirming Biden’s 306-232 victory over Trump. While no Senators signed on to House Republicans’ attempts to contest states like Georgia and Michigan, Senator Hawley did go through with contesting Pennsylvania, which is what led to such a late night. There were 7 senators who voted to contest the Pennsylvania results, with Senator Scott of Florida and newly-elected Senator Lummis of Wyoming joining the “sedition caucus” while Senator Kennedy of Louisiana sat the second protest out.

Minutes later, Trump released a statement that, to coin a phrase, was a “non-concession concession”:

Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again.

Early this morning former Republican congressman turned MSNBC talk show host, Joe Scarborough, called for the immediate arrest of Trump, Guiliani, and Trump Jr. for their roles in yesterday’s D.C. rally to incite the insurrection on Capitol Hill.

Security forces regained control of the Capitol around the time that the 6pm curfew in D.C. was going into effect… Boy, that sounds like a line of dialogue from a dystopian movie, doesn’t it?

About three hours ago Congress resumed where it had left off several hours earlier, in the middle of a debate on whether to object to Arizona’s electoral college votes. In the end only 6 Senators voted in favor of the objection, with several apparently changing their mind in light of today’s insurrection. For the record, the six remaining members of the Senate’s “sedition caucus” are: three relatively prominent members in Cruz, Hawley, and Louisiana’s John Kennedy; two who just joined the Senate this week, namely Tuberville from Alabama and Marshall from Kansas; and Mississippi’s Hyde-Smith. The House is voting on the objection as I write this.

It is unclear whether or not there will be any further objections. The original gameplan for the day supposedly involved objections to as many as six states. I’ve heard suggestions that either Arizona will be it, or there will be an objection to Pennsylvania but then no more. Either way, it would appear that before Congress heads home for the night the electoral college votes will be formally counted.

The open question on everybody’s minds is, what happens tomorrow? There have been a wide variety of people arguing today that Pence and the Cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment, and/or Congress should impeach and remove Trump, as soon as possible. David Frum’s piece today in The Atlantic was entitled “Remove Trump Tonight;” there’s a piece in The Bulwark today by Rob Tracinski entitled “Impeach. Convict. Indict;” and Bill Kristol and George Conway have been on Twitter advocating for immediate impeachment. And these four individuals are, or more properly were, Republican thought leaders.

In the last half-hour:

• Biden gave an address, in which he referred to what’s going on as being an “insurrection”.
• Trump released a video address aimed at his supporters. Carl Hulse from the New York Times reacted as follows: “That was a message to calm things down?”
• Major news organizations have started to call the Georgia election for Ossoff, as his lead is now up to about 25K votes, or 0.56%, exceeding the recount threshold.
• There is reporting that the National Association of Manufacturers has issued a statement asking Pence to “seriously consider” working with the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment.

And, about half an hour after I wrote the last update, all hell started to break loose on Capitol Hill. Current headlines:

• CNN.com: “Mob invades US Capitol”
• Washington Post: “Pro-Trump mob storms Capitol building”
• New York Times: “Mob storms Capitol, inflamed by angry Trump speech”
• Wall Street Journal: “Pro-Trump mob forces way into Capitol; session halted”
• Fox News: “Guns drawn on House floor, McCarthy says he heard report of shots fired as lawmakers are evacuated”
• Newsmax: “Protestors storm US Capitol, reports of wounded as multiple shots fired”

Quoting New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt: “This has gone well beyond a political story. We don’t know where the vice president and speaker of the House have taken refuge. It’s unclear who controls the Capitol and there’s no clear plan for how the government will be able to wrest back control of it.”

We’re in for a long night…

Sometime this morning Ossoff declared victory over Perdue, although I don’t believe any major media organizations have yet called the race for Ossoff. His lead has not appreciably changed in the last several hours, and still sits a little below the 0.5% recount threshold, but there is still some vote to be counted and I’ve seen speculation that his margin will eventually exceed that threshold.

As we speak Congress is debating an objection raised to the electoral college votes of Arizona (alphabetically the first of the ‘swing states’). Current headlines from the New York Times include:

• “Pence rejects Trump’s pressure to block certification saying he ‘loves the Constitution.'”
• “Parts of Capitol Hill are evacuated as protesters flood the grounds.”
• “McConnell speaks out forcefully against push to overturn election.”

Trump addressed supporters in front of the White House, saying “we will never give up, we will never concede,” and referring to Biden as an “illegitimate” president.

There is new reporting today that Biden will name Merrick Garland as his Attorney General, which is a fascinating choice. Garland, of course, was famously nominated by Obama in 2016 to fill Scalia’s Supreme Court seat, and was supposed to be an easily-confirmable nominee, but the McConnell-controlled Senate never gave him a hearing and after Trump’s victory the seat went to Gorsuch. Now that Biden believes the Democrats will control the Senate, he can pluck the 68-year-old Garland off of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, install him in his Cabinet, and then get somebody younger and/or less moderate nominated to the D.C. Circuit in Garland’s place — somebody like 50-year-old Ketanji Jackson Brown, who might eventually be Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee. Whereas, if McConnell still controlled the Senate, he might have sought to block Biden from filling Garland’s seat, making a Garland Cabinet appointment less appealing.

In the wee hours of the morning, the major news organizations have called the Warnock-Loeffler race in favor of the Democrats. While I was sleeping Warnock’s margin has increased from 35K votes to 53K votes, putting him ahead by 1.2% (50.6 – 49.4).

The other race remains uncalled, but the lead has changed overnight: Ossoff is now ahead of Perdue by 16K votes, or 0.4% (50.2 – 49.8) — within the 0.5% margin at which the losing candidate can request a recount, but slightly ahead of Biden’s margin over Trump in November. Per the New York Times: “The remaining uncounted vote in Georgia appeared largely to be in Democratic-leaning counties in the Atlanta area, such as DeKalb and Fulton counties, as well as ballots from voters in the military and overseas.”

As such, things are looking rather good for the Democrats at this moment. Achieving a 50-50 tie in the Senate would allow Schumer to become Majority Leader in lieu of McConnell, and would give the Biden Administration a shot at actually being able to govern, without a solidly obstructionist Senate. I still wouldn’t expect to see transformative legislation passed in the 117th Congress, given the tenuous nature of the Democratic legislative majorities; as I saw one wag put it last night, Senator Manchin (D?-WV) is now the real Majority Leader, and I imagine as the most conservative Democratic Senator he will indeed have an outsized degree of influence on the legislative agenda. But, there’s a lot to be gained simply from Schumer’s ability to ensure that Biden’s Cabinet nominees, Biden’s judicial nominees, and any legislation adopted by the House can actually get a shot at moving forward in the Senate.

Later today attention will shift back to Capitol Hill for the joint meeting of Congress to open the Electoral College votes. There is reporting that Pence told Trump yesterday that “he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of [Biden]’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did.”