Did you miss 2018?  The midterm markets?  That time that Rick Scott didn’t become a Senator on January 3rd?  The surprise December 24th OPM site update?  How about that last-minute Mattis market potential flip?

Well that’s all behind us now… the 2018 markets are settled and we’re one week into a brand new era.  Impeachment.  Democrats in Iowa.  The government is shut down.  And the weekly preview is back!

Will they impeach the motherfucker?

Probably not – I think everything I wrote about this last year still holds true.  Yet!  There’s clearly an appetite there among House Dems and there’s always the risk that Trump does something that gets Republicans to turn on him (or that Mueller finds more than it seems he’s found).  The biggest risk factor for his impeachment might be Mick Mulvaney – the new chief of staff is reportedly taking a more hands-off approach when it comes to managing Trump, and that’s already resulted in letting two of his impulsive decisions go through (Syria withdrawal and shutdown).  In theory, anyway, if given enough leash Trump could run himself off a cliff with Republicans (maybe by firing Jerome Powell?) and make impeachment a political possibility.

Elizabeth Warren isn’t that bad on the stump?

I think I’ve underrated her charisma in my initial take on 2020.  That – or she’s just the only Big Name out there currently doing any campaigning.  Either way, she’s up to the low teens in the market while traders wait to see what happens in the next edition of CNN’s monthly Iowa poll.  (Note also that she’s doing reasonably well in an early NH poll, especially among the more informed).  In the meantime, read Dave Weigel.

Shut.  It.  Down.

What day are we on now?  Who knows.  But the shutdown is starting to get real and Donny is looking for ways out.  For now, his favorite pet idea is to just declare a national emergency and use DOD money to build a portion of the wall (if he doesn’t get a deal with Democrats).  This seems… far-fetched?  But remember the main point of the wall for him is to be able to stand before his base voters and say that he delivered on it, so whatever gets him to the point where he can deliver that rhetoric he will take.  There’s also been some back and forth on “oh they didn’t want concrete so we’re giving them steel” which I believe is an attempt to build support for the Artistically Designed Steel Slats among the base more than anything but who knows.  Meanwhile Pence is getting nowhere with Democrats, as Democrats don’t see any point in providing any funding for the wall.  Anyway, let’s just hope we get a market where we can bet on when the shutdown ends, no?

Tweets and polls

RDT | PT | VPT | WHT | 538 TA | RCP TA

Well Trump, at least, is tweeting healthily.  The other accounts are in some weird pattern as they come back from the holidays and try to find a rhythm again.  Of course, WHT and VPT are agenda-driven and there’s basically no agenda during this shutdown beyond miscellaneous “Wall Good, Democrats Bad” stuff so maybe they’ve kind of thrown their hands up.  And lord knows what Scavino is up to.  Apparently we don’t retweet WHT anymore?  And we’re back to retweeting Donny, but only in sprees?  And then sometimes taking days off?  Be careful out there, folks.

We ought to get a few national polls this week what with the shutdown and all.  Something new, please!  The weeklies and dailies do get a bit boring after a while.