And So it Begins:Happy New Year! The ball dropped under pouring rain in  Times Square, it’s 2019, and the next presidential campaign has begun while Donald Trump is still declaring victory in the last one.

  Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced that she’s formed an exploratory committee for a presidential run. It’s a formality. She’s running for president.

  Standing outside her home in Cambridge, Warren declared herself a champion of the dwindling middle class. “The problem we’ve got right now in Washington is that it works great for those who’ve got money to buy influence, and I’m fighting against that,” Warren said. “And you bet it’s going to make a lot of people unhappy. But at the end of the day, I don’t go to Washington to work for them.”

  Asked whether he thinks Warren can win, President Trump said, “I don’t know, you’d have to ask her psychiatrist.” Make the presidency classy again.

  It’s expected to be a crowded field of Democrats, but at 69, Warren is one of the best-known among them. Also expected to run, all of them senators, Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

House Music:House of Representatives Democrats released their proposed bills to re-open parts of the government without money for the President’s border wall. They say they’ll vote on them as soon as Thursday.

  That puts the Senate Republicans and the President in the position of having to say “no” and keep the government closed if they still want to fight for the wall.

  The bills are pretty much the same as what Republicans approved once before. “It would be the height of irresponsibility and political cynicism for Senate Republicans to now reject the same legislation they have already supported,” Minority leaders rep. Nancy Pelosi and Senate Sen. Chuck Schumer said in a statement late Monday.

  The President said he is willing to negotiate but, “No, we are not giving up. We have to have border security and the wall is a big part of border security.”

Advertisements for Himself:With little to do but Twitter his thumbs yesterday, that’s what President Trump did. “An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media,” he wrote. Well, that is NOT what the media reported. What they reported is that Trump’s outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly said the idea of a solid southern border wall had long ago been abandoned in the Oval Office.

  Trump wrote, “It’s incredible how Democrats can all use their ridiculous sound bite and say that a Wall doesn’t work. It does, and properly built, almost 100%!” Yes, almost 100 percent, except for when the Germans did an end run around the French Maginot line.  

 Trump has taken on a Nixonian victimhood, as if any opposition or criticism is just  irrational hatred. Yesterday he was also defending his decision to abruptly jerk US troops out of Syria, abandoning Kurdish and Syrian allies. “I am the only person in America who could say that, ‘I’m bringing our great troops back home, with victory,’ and get BAD press,” he wrote. “It is Fake News and Pundits who have FAILED for years that are doing the complaining. If I stayed in Endless Wars forever, they would still be unhappy!”

  Under criticism from all sides, including his own Republican leaders, the White House says Trump is slowing down the abrupt withdrawal. 

Money, Money:The Dow Jones closed out the year up by 265 points, but overall it was the worst year for stocks since 2008. The Dow fell 5.6 percent, The S&P 500 was down 6.2 percent, and the Nasdaq, four percent. 

Lots of Luck:Departing Secretary of defense James Mattis, who was fired after quitting, wrote a short note to all the staff in which he said the Pentagon is at its best “when the times are most difficult.”

  Yesterday was Mattis’s last day. He’s good at giving the President an elbow. “I am confident that each of you remains undistracted from our sworn mission to support and defend the Constitution while protecting our way of life,” he wrote.

Close Encounters:The NASA spacecraft New Horizons overnight passed by a  small icy world that is the most distant object examined by a craft launched from Earth. New Horizons passed within about 2,200 miles of Ultima Thule, which sounds like a female character from a James Bond movie.

  Ultima Thule  is a billion miles farther from the sun than Pluto and could help scientists understand the origins of the solar system. Information from New Horizons takes hours to transmit back to Earth and will be arriving during the day.

Bingeworthy:Seven college football bowl games are on the schedule today; The Gator Bowl, Outback Bowl, Citrus Bowl, Rose Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl. You can start watching at noon and finish sometime after midnight.

Love a Parade: Today’s Rose Parade in Pasadena features 40 floats, 21 marching bands, 18 equestrian units, and a Jewish bisexual science student Rose queen who wears glasses. Deser Siskel is breaking barriers. Imagine that. She wears glasses.

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