If the future is female, as the slogan dating back to the '70s suggests, the current state of the Democratic Party is well on its way.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful Democrat in America, emerging as President Trump's main foil during the shutdown.
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the fastest-rising new member on Capitol Hill, using online authenticity to instantly gain an audience with her Democratic Socialist policy agenda.
• Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Tulsi Gabbard are running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
• Georgia politician Stacey Abrams will be giving the State of the Union response to Trump next week.

Why it matters: This is the first time in history that being a woman, particularly for Democrats running in 2020, "is probably more a political asset than a liability," per the LA Times.

Be smart: The 2018 midterms were an overwhelming sign of success and momentum behind female candidates and among female voters (59% supported Democrats), which could propel women in 2020, Axios' Alexi McCammond emails.

• Harris is the latest woman to enter the race, and she's made the clear and early case that she'll differentiate herself by focusing on her time as an attorney general and highlighting her connection with the black community.
• Warren prefers "nerding out" on policy and hammering an economic message of class inequities by recalling her childhood.
• Gillibrand separates herself "as a young mom," often "emphasizing her record on protecting women from sexual assault and her support for female candidates," per the LA Times. Don't forget her role in removing Al Franken from the Senate after his past instances of sexual misconduct were revealed.
• Gabbard has focused on being a military veteran, telling CNN: "There is one main issue that is central to the rest, and that is the issue of war and peace."

P.S. Former Starbucks CEO and potential 2020 presidential contender Howard Schultz called Harris' support for eliminating private health insurance "not American" and Warren's "wealth tax" proposal "ridiculous."

• Warren responds: "What's 'ridiculous' is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else. The top 0.1%, who'd pay my #UltraMillionaireTax, own about the same wealth as 90% of America."

The polar vortex is here.

• All-time cold temperature records will be set and wind chills will plummet to dangerous levels, with more than 83 million people expected to see temperatures drop below 0°F by week's end.

1. The FBI has determined that the only discernible motive for 64-year-old Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock was his desire to kill as many people as possible and gain "some form of infamy." Go deeper.
2. U.S. intelligence chiefs told the Senate Intelligence Committee that ISIS "still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria. Go deeper.
3. Baltimore will no longer prosecute people for possessing marijuana, regardless of quantity, and will seek to vacate almost 5,000 possession convictions dating back to 2011. Go deeper.
4. Trump disavowed his former staffer Cliff Sims, whose White House insider memoir "Team of Vipers" was released today, calling Sims "a mess" and "nothing more than a gofer." Behind the scenes.
5. Jared Kushner ran a white board planning session last week at the White House with the Koch network and other people who worked with him on criminal justice reform. The purpose: to see if they can replicate the approach they took to pass criminal justice reform to overhaul America’s immigration system. Go deeper.

Tom Brady has taken an unfair share of Super Bowls, and it turns out he's scoring an unfair share of the 🐐 emoji [GOAT: Greatest of All Time] on Twitter as well, WSJ reports.

• "When he led the Patriots to an epic overtime win last week, New Englanders spent the next day sending hundreds of thousands of tweets with an emoji of a goat."
• "There was only one time in the history of Twitter when the goat emoji was more popular. That was the day after the Patriots came from behind to win the Super Bowl in 2017 and Mr. Brady made his case as the best quarterback ever."
• "On any given day, there are roughly 40,000 tweets with the goat emoji, according to Twitter data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. There were 333,665 tweets with the goat emoji the day after Mr. Brady’s last Super Bowl win. The uptick of goat emojis amounted to a nearly 750% increase."

🐐🐐🐐