Supreme Court tees up Trump ballot case, Haley pressured to quit, while the question remains, “What ‘very powerful people’ wanted to bribe Kari Lake?” The underbelly is getting exposed, and we are Resolute.

First up, some breaking news: Just saw Nikki Haley on CNN celebrating her victory today in the Super Bowl.

C’mon. That’s funny.

More on her in a bit, but we do have some breaking news.

SCOTUS Apparently Fast-Tracking Decision on Efforts to Boot Trump from Ballot

Mark February 8^th on the calendar. That’s when the Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in Trump’s appeal to put a decisive end to the efforts to contort the 14^th Amendment to keep him off the ballot.

What’s more, the Epoch Times reports that a note accompanying the scheduling announcement suggests they will issue a ruling that very day. A sign of how timely and crucial the Court feels this decision is.

Meanwhile, Maine’s Supreme Court is declining to rule on the Secretary of State’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to put a hold on her unilateral effort to ban Trump until the U.S. Supreme Court rules. As Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley wrote today:

“The Maine Supreme Court declined to review the matter. With other states like Massachusetts ruling this week against disqualification, Colorado will remain the outlier as the only state supreme court willing to embrace this dangerous and anti-democratic theory.”

Should Nikki Drop Out of Race?

On Tuesday night, Donald Trump earned the most votes ever in the New Hampshire primary. Despite being outspent two-to-one and not camping out there for a year, he scored a double-digit victory over Nikki Haley. And even there, not one in three votes for Haley came from a Republican in the Republican primary. Haley came in third in Iowa. And Trump is set to stomp her on her own South Carolina turf and his primary road gets easier from there.

Haley is under enormous pressure to get out of the race so the party can concentrate on beating Joe Biden. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is wanting Haley out.  There are reports breaking this afternoon that the RNC is drafting resolution to declare Donald Trump the presumptive GOP nominee. Even major Haley donor and fan Andy Sabin advised the former UN Ambassador Wednesday to heed the words of Kenny Rogers and “know when to walk away.”

But “The Gambler” also sang you need to “know when to run” and that there will be plenty of time for counting ballots when the dealin’s done. So does Nikki need to stop now? Deny voters in states down the line a chance to have a meaningful say? Or does she need to consider the impact continuing will have on the general election?

At this point, all she can do is hurt Trump for the general, especially as she has grown increasingly negative and personal, blowing money and sweat equity that should be focused on Biden. (I mean, really, Nikki. Deliberately trying to parallel Trump’s age and acuity to Biden’s? Completely stealing the new Democratic talking point?)

Plus, she’d be hurting her future prospects if she continues alienating Trump supporters. This is no normal election. Tens of millions of Trump voters feel they were hosed in 2020, then told to shut up about it. A GOP candidate who stands in the way of them getting a shot at payback and shoving 2020 back in the faces of the powers that be might as well take up coding.

That said, but for Vivek and Tim Scott, none of the people who are calling on Haley to drop out have spent the last year of their lives doggedly trudging through every nook and cranny of Iowa and New Hampshire, hitting coffee shops at 5 a.m., state fairs in the burning sun, late night fundraisers, answering the same questions, giving the same speeches over and over and over and over and over again. None have walked in her heels.

If you’re driven by ambition — and that certainly describes Nikki Haley — it ain’t easy to hit the brakes and pull off the road. Or perhaps a better analogy: She’s been running and running and running … like on a treadmill. The workout’s done, but she needs a cool down period before stepping off.

I suspect if she does step off, say, after South Carolina, and does it with grace, Trump will be the first to hand her a towel.

But will he make her VP, as some suggest is Haley’s real angle? That’s for another day.

In the meantime, reports are that progressive billionaire Reid Hoffman, who’s been pumping cash into Haley’s campaign while simultaneously funding lawsuits against Trump, has pulled the plug.

Who Done It? Update on Effort to Bribe Kari Lake. AZ GOP Chair Resigns

Arizona GOP Chair Jeff Dewit resigned Wednesday, a day after bombshell audio exposed him trying to bribe Kari Lake to stay out of the Senate race. Once a big MAGA supporter, Dewit did not apologize for his role in the scheme proposed by “very powerful people back east.” But he did whine about the audio being edited and hinted there are worse tapes to come.

So who were those powerful people back east? Stream alumna and pal Rachel Alexander, who has been covering political corruption in Arizona like snow in Alaska, has been digging around. She reports in the Arizona Sun-Times her sources are pointing the finger toward the National Republican Senatorial Committee, specifically, Political Director Tim Edson. The NRSC Chair Steve Daines denied … having heard the recording. The NRSC itself has not responded to Rachel’s request for comment.

But Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale told Steve Bannon on War Room today that Daines himself had personally intervened to browbeat Rosendale into not running against Democrat Senator Jon Tester.

Browbeating ain’t bribes. 

Meanwhile, the corruption in Arizona politics is a wonder to behold. Seems there is now a “glitch” in the system that changes Republican voters to Independent in advance of the GOP primary. Astonishing how all these glitches only hurt one party. 

BREAKING: The Arizona Secretary of State has reported a “glitch” that is currently flipping Republican voter registrations to Independent ahead of the Republican primary election

Once again, Arizona is a national embarrassment for having the most rigged elections in the country… pic.twitter.com/42163ZuGNx

— George (@BehizyTweets) January 22, 2024

CNN’s Van Jones Has Advice to Biden Campaign: “Keep the Big Guy Hidden”

CNN’s Van Jones is a progressive, but he sometimes throws the Democrat’s dirty laundry right at the camera. (I’ll never forget how he admitted the Obama Campaign was scared to death of Sarah Palin in 2008 and that they immediately and deliberately set out to destroy her and use their media allies to brand her as “stupid” before the public could learn the truth.)

Van’s latest? During NH primary coverage Tuesday night, he said, “Part of what we’re looking at as Trump’s strength, his resilience, is really a reflection of Biden’s fragility. Republicans are not afraid of Joe Biden.” And later in the evening came this kick in the gut.

“If I were Biden, I would stay hidden. And I’ll tell you why. He doesn’t inspire confidence. And he’s not a great messenger for himself,” Jones said.

“There’s something wrong with this campaign where we’re somehow expecting Joe Biden — and frankly, he hid during the last campaign — to start come out now and be Flash Gordon and save his own campaign,”

Jones is suggesting the Leader of the Free World has to hide away like a scared rabbit to have any chance of winning and couldn’t inspire a duck to quack. He’s dunking on his own guy.

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and co-author of the counter-terrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.