It's Thursday morning, what do we know?

The Big Lie and abortion rights have a good night & Alex Jones has a very bad day

Trump-backed Kari Lake won her gubernatorial primary on Tuesday night

What do we know?

• Congresswoman Jackie Walorski was killed on Wednesday in a head-on collision in her home state of Indiana.  Two of Walorski’s staff were also killed in the crash, Emma Thomson, 28, and  Zachery Potts, 27.  Walorski, a Republican, was widely respected among colleagues on both sides of the aisle.  She and her staff were killed when a car crossed over into the lane they were traveling in and struck them head-on

• Vin Scully, legendary broadcaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers for 67 years and eminently decent man, died Tuesday at 94. More on Scully’s tremendous life here

• The Alex Jones trial took a dramatic turn today.  With Jones on the stand, the attorney for the Sandy Hook parents, Mark Bankston, revealed that Jones’ attorney had mistakenly sent Bankston a cache of Jones’ texts and emails regarding Sandy Hook.  Jones had previously claimed under oath he had no texts or emails pertaining to Sandy Hook.  The texts also included information on how much revenue Jones’ InfoWars was raking in: on some days in 2018, the site hauled in more than $800,000 per day.  Jones also finally confessed under oath that he knew the Sandy Hook massacre was “100% real.” This Twitter thread has more details on Jones’ day in court

Acyn @Acyn

“Do you know what perjury is?”

What do we know in Ukraine?

• The Razoni passed inspection in Turkey and is on its way to Lebanon.  The Razoni is the first ship to leave Ukraine carrying grain in its hold since the war began, but so far it is the only one.  Seventeen other vessels are loaded and awaiting permission to get underway but have not yet been given permission to depart

• Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that Russia is creating a strike force specifically targeting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih.  The industrial city of Kryvyi Rih is only about 30 miles from the war’s southern front

August Primaries-What Do We Know?

The results of the August 2nd primaries are in and it’s a mixed bag, but mostly bad news for democracy.

• In Arizona

  • Democrat and current secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, easily won her gubernatorial primary with more than 72% of the vote.  Hobbs will face off against Trump-backed, election-denying Kari Lake, who squeaked out a win against lawyer Karrin Taylor Robson

  • Another Trump-backed candidate, Blake Masters, won his primary for U.S. Senate against Jim Lamon.  Like Lake, Masters is a 2020 conspiracy theorist

  • Trump’s big night in Arizona continued as Mark Finchem won the GOP primary to become the state’s next secretary of state.  Finchem makes Lake and Masters look like voices of reason and restraint.  He has ties to the Oath Keepers, was among several Arizona lawmakers who tried to decertify the 2020 election results and is a Q-Anon conspiracy theorist.  If Finchem wins in November, he would oversee the 2024 election in Arizona

  • Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers lost his State Senate bid by a 2-1 margin. Bowers was term limited in the House and was attempting to jump to Arizona’s Senate but the once popular Republican was trounced in the aftermath of his January 6th testimony

• In Michigan

  • First term Republican congressman, Peter Meijer, lost to challenger John Gibbs.  Like the Arizona Republicans who won, Gibbs is an election denier.  Meijer was a member of the House for less than a month when he bucked his party and voted for Donald Trump’s impeachment, an act of true character.  Democrats rewarded him by putting money behind challenger Gibbs. Republican voters and Democratic operatives can share in the blame for this one

  • In the GOP primary for governor, Trump-backed Tudor Dixon prevailed over Kevin Rinke and will face off against incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.  Whitmer is facing stiff headwinds because of some of the strict Covid policies enacted

• In Kansas

  • A measure on the Kansas ballot that would have stripped abortion rights was voted down 58.8%-41.2%.  Most polling showed a closer race than the actual outcome and should be a wakeup call for anti- abortion absolutists.  Interestingly, the turnout for the ballot measure was extremely high, possibly a bellwether that the Dobbs decision will play a more significant role in Democratic turnout in November than previously thought

  Tom Bonier @tbonier

  The Dobbs decision engaged women in Kansas to an unprecedented degree. This chart shows the percent of new registrants in the state who were women (as a 7 day average). Note the spike after the Dobbs decision leaked, and huge jump after the Supreme Court handed it down.

  

• In Missouri 

  • Former governor and all-around creep Eric Greitens couldn’t manage to crack the 20% mark in his run for the state’s Senate seat.  Greitens finished third, behind Eric Schmitt and Vicky Hartzler.  Schmitt will be the odds on favorite in November to fill the seat of retiring Senator Roy Blunt

• Elsewhere

  • It wasn’t all bad news for pro-democracy Republicans.  Washington state Republican, Dan Newhouse, who voted to impeach Trump, won his primary in Washington’s 4th CD over Trump-backed Loren Culp.  In Washington’s open primary, Newhouse finished first, Democrat Doug White placed second and Culp finished third.  Newhouse and White will face off again in November.  Likewise, Jaime Herrera Beutler, incumbent Republican from Washington’s 3rd CD, and another yay vote on Trump’s impeachment, finished second behind Democrat Marie Perez in their ‘jungle primary’.  The two will face each other in this fall’s general election