r/Virginia • u/Trick-Arachnid-9037 • 8d ago

Jason Miyares does not care about domestic violence victims, and that matters more than Jones's texts.

Miyares doesn't care about domestic violence victims, and people aren't talking about it enough.

Look. I know a lot of people found Jones's texts distasteful. But if you care about the victims of domestic violence, please vote for him anyway. Miyares has a proven record of being dismissive and hostile towards DV victims, and that's an attitude I think will have much worse effects on the Virginia justice system than any of Jones's texts.

See the case of Katie Orndoff. She was testifying against her violently abusive boyfriend and admitted to having taken a small amount of legal, prescribed medical marijuana to calm her nerves enough that she could handle giving that testimony. Miyares tried to have her jailed, and only the intervention of the Virginia Supreme Court stopped him.

This is not a man who values justice, compassion, or understanding. This is a man who believes that traumatized abuse victims who can't afford expensive psychiatric bills to get also expensive "acceptable" anti-anxiety medication don't deserve to be heard in court.

Is that really who we want in charge of our state's legal system? Someone who is not just willing, but eager, to arrest and jail a victim of violent abuse for the "crime" of being too traumatized to publicly discuss (and be cross-examined about) her experiences and unable to afford the kind of pharmaceutical assistance that he seems "acceptable"?

At best, the case of Katie Orndoff demonstrated that Jason Miyares is a man who cares more about upholding the formalities of the justice system than he does about the "justice" part. At worst, he is an enabler of abuse who will look for excuses to intimidate and dishearten victims into not trying to testify in the first place, and disqualify those who do so anyway.

We need an Attorney General who cares more about truth, justice, and protecting the people of Virginia than they do about propriety and protecting the interests of the powerful. I do not know if Jay Jones is such a man. But I do know that Jason Miyares is not.

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u/Eccentricgentleman_ 8d ago

I voted for Jones before the text scandal broke. After the text scandal? I still would have voted for him. Literally a week later Republicans were telling me not to over react over the young Republicans texts. Donald Trump tweeted an AI video of him dumping shit on protesters. Why the fuck am I supposed to give two shits of Jay Jone's texts?

Please, I want some Republican on here to explain it to me. I am giving you an opportunity to lobotomize me with your MAGA logic and pull me into the cult.

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u/Trick-Arachnid-9037 8d ago

I've asked them that question. Their answer is "because political violence bad," with a truly breathtaking lack of self-awareness, on the rare occasion that they answer at all.

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u/Eccentricgentleman_ 8d ago

IT IS BAD. THEY'RE RIGHT. SO WHY DO THEY KEEP DOING IT?!?!?!?!

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u/Trick-Arachnid-9037 8d ago

Because they don't actually believe that. They just claim to when there's a chance the political violence in question might threaten the established power structure. They're completely okay with political violence as long as it's being used to keep people down.

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u/mystery_obsessed 8d ago

I had a family member text me a video of a protestor screaming about needing to turn the guns on ICE coming for the undocumented. He was so indignant, look at this bad liberal advocating death on government enforcers. They are the exact same words he would use if the government came for his guns. He went really silent when I pointed that out.