Immediately, if not sooner | Jay Jones needs to end his attorney general campaign

We know today that Jay Jones, the Democratic Party nominee for attorney general, sent a series of text messages to a former Republican House colleague in 2022 fantasizing about the former House Speaker, Todd Gilbert, being shot, and worse, that his kids would meet the same fate.

Jay Jones needs to drop out of the race.

Immediately, if not sooner.

“Like all people, I’ve sent text messages that I regret, and I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics,” Jones began his statement on Text-gate that went out to multiple media outlets on Friday, before making himself the victim.

“Let’s be clear about what is happening in the Attorney General race right now: Jason Miyares is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign,” Jones went on. “This is a strategy that ensures Jason Miyares will continue to be accountable to Donald Trump, not the people of Virginia. This race is about whether Trump can control Virginia or Virginians control Virginia.”

It’s true that a Republican caught sending the kind of vile messages that Jones is conceding that he sent to Carrie Coyner, who is locked in a tight re-election battle for her 75th House District seat, in a district that was Kamala Harris +6 last November, wouldn’t face calls to step down from his campaign.

John Reid, the lieutenant governor nominee on the Republican ticket, has been linked to a social-media account that shared gay Nazi porn, for instance.

OK, so, Glenn Youngkin tried to force Reid off the ticket back in the spring; but Reid is still on the ballot, is the point.

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ICYMI

• The John Reid gay porn thing got weirder | Would you believe, gay Nazi porn?

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This, to me, isn’t a matter of, Democrats are willing to cut bait when they find out that one of their own is vile, while Republicans double-down on the vile.

Jason Miyares is an awful attorney general, and he’s got to go – but first, Jay Jones needs to go.

“After learning of these comments earlier today, I spoke frankly with Jay about my disgust with what he had said and texted,” Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic Party nominee for governor, said in a statement on the Jones matter.

“I made clear to Jay that he must fully take responsibility for his words. What I have also made clear is that as a candidate, and as the next governor of our Commonwealth, I will always condemn violent language in our politics,” Spanberger said.

Next up, the Democratic Party lieutenant governor nominee, Ghazala Hashmi.

“I have been very clear that political violence has no place in our country, and I condemn it at every turn,” Hashmi said. “Jay must take accountability for the pain that his words have caused. We must demand better of our leaders and of each other.“

The source that broke the story on this awful text back-and-forth is National Review, a noted MAGA water-carrier, but it doesn’t matter who was the first to report on the story, when Jones isn’t denying the substance of what is being reported.

And it’s bad.

The context, according to the reporting, was the death of former Democratic lawmaker Joe Johnson Jr. GOP lawmakers were issuing statements of condolence, which is what people with common decency do in such situations, but this seemed to bother Jones, who, according to the text-message thread, wasn’t a fan of Johnson, a centrist Democrat.

He accidentally addressed Coyner with a text expressing that sentiment, then continued on after being made aware of the error, wondering aloud in a follow-up what that “POS” Gilbert would say about him if he died.

According to the report:

“If those guys die before me,” Jones wrote, referencing the Republican colleagues who were publicly honoring the deceased Johnson’s memory, “I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves” to “send them out awash in something.”

Yeah, yikes.

It gets worse.

Jones: Three people, two bullets

Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot

Gilbert gets two bullets to the head

Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time

Coyner: Jay

Please stop

Jones: Lol

Ok, ok

Coyner: It really bothers me when you talk about hurting people or wishing death on them

It isn’t ok

No matter who they are

The National Review article was posted at 1:09 p.m. Friday. At 2:49 p.m. Friday, Geary Higgins, another House Republican caught up in a tossup re-election race, posted screenshots of this thread, and another, later exchange between Jones and Coyner, in which we can see that Jones hit a new low.

Coyner: You were talking about hopping (sic) jennifer Gilbert’s children would die.

Jones: Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.

Coyner: I point blank asked you more than three times.

And you dug in that you meant it.

I honestly am questioning a lot today.

Jones: I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes

The unsettling texts make the revelation from just a day ago that Jones was charged with reckless-driving in 2022 after being clocked driving 116 mph in a 65 mph zone in New Kent County seem quaint.

The charge, a misdemeanor, could have led to jail time; instead, Jones was fined $1,500, with $101 in additional court costs, according to online court records.

Jones issued a statement on that as well, calling the matter “regretful.”

“Regretful” would seem to be the word of the day with Jay Jones, who, for the good of the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, who don’t deserve to be sentenced to another four years of Jason Miyares as our attorney general, filing frivolous lawsuits on behalf of Donald Trump, needs to end his campaign, now.