Albanyguy

I think Michelle will be a major stumbling block to a guilty plea. Jim Bob might see the wisdom of urging Josh to face reality and accept a plea deal, but I doubt if she ever will. Josh is clearly her favorite child, perhaps the only one she truly loves, and she must be hysterical with fear at the thought of what would happen to him in prison. She's probably leading the "It wasn't that bad, he was just curious, Satan tempted him, we're being persecuted" brigade and deluding herself that he could be acquitted at trial. And, of course, an acquittal would not only save Josh, but also what's left of their tattered reputation and possibly their TLC contract. I also think that Michelle's opinions carry great weight behind closed doors. She has the baby-voiced, head-bobbing Gothard wife act down pat, but in private I think that Jim Bob is very dependent on her guidance and support and may even be a little afraid of her.

I cannot imagine him daring to say "no" to Jim Bob, nor can I imagine Jim Bob taking "no" for an answer.

I think that, like most of their beliefs, it comes with a big, heaping teaspoon of hypocrisy. "All sins are the same" comes in very handy when they want to let one of their own off the hook, but it can be disregarded when they want to sit in judgement on outsiders.

Nothing from Nurie and the World's Best Son-in-Law?

Although Josh apparently can have access to his children as often as he wants for as long as he wants (with Anna's "supervision"), I doubt if it will really happen more than once or twice. I don't think Josh had any real interest in engaging with his children when they were all in the same house and he'll probably regard visits with them as a nuisance to be avoided. I think there will be one visit with Jim Bob, Michelle, Anna and all the kids, with Jana or some other Duggar girl along to take pictures of the big emotional reunion. Pictures of them as one big happy, loving family could then be used by the Duggars and their surrogates (like those two fools, Lily and Ellie) to try to turn public opinion back in Josh's favor. Nobody with half a gnat's brain would be fooled, but the leghumpers would eat it up. After that, I could see Josh telling Anna not to bring the kids again. And I think he'll only tolerate visits from Anna as long as she's useful to him, bringing him his favorite foods and possibly even sneaking him a burner phone so he could get back on the internet.

I imagine it's been some variation on "Daddy had to go out of town to take care of some business for Lolli and Pop". The kids would buy this because they've been raised to know that when Pop says "Jump!", Daddy says "How high, Sir?". And as long as Anna doesn't break down in front of them or some other adult doesn't let something slip, they've probably settled down happily enough. I don't mean to imply that this whole mess won't be traumatic for them, but for now they'll be sheltered from the worst of it because they already live in a protective bubble. No newspaper headlines or TV news reports will reach them. No other kids will taunt them on the school bus or playground. Once Josh is released on bond, the kids will probably be taken to see him at least once for appearance's sake and again they'll be fed the "Daddy's working and can't come home right now" line. Eventually, the kids will have to be told that Daddy isn't coming back for a very long time, but I doubt if JB, Michelle or Anna are thinking that far ahead. They're probably still clinging to the deluded hope that Josh will be acquitted or, at worst, let off with a slap on the wrist. And once the dust settles, I doubt if the kids will really miss Josh all that much on a day-to-day level. I've always thought that he was a distant, uninvolved father. The kids' memories of Josh will probably be of them tiptoeing around, trying not to disturb him as he sits in his easy chair and Mommy waits on him hand and foot.

"...in a residence where there are no minors in the home or that would be visiting unsupervised". Does that mean that Josh would be able to have his kids brought to see him as long as they were supervised? I'm not entirely opposed to that (at least the kids wouldn't think that their father had dropped off the face of the earth), but it would depend on how carefully they were supervised.

Oh, I don't think Jeremy is very intelligent at all, but he is at least less sheltered and slightly more worldly than the Duggar kids and he has never seemed to be very impressed by Jim Bob. I think he's at least smart enough to recognize the raid on the car lot as a sign of real trouble brewing, no matter what JB said. And you're absolutely right about Derek and Jill.

You may well be right about this, Zella. I was thinking that Jim Bob would be slightly more realistic about the chances of Josh being acquitted at trial and possibly more worried about spending a small fortune on Josh's defense only to have him convicted anyway. Michelle must be hysterical at the thought of her beloved Josh going to prison. I think it will come down to a battle royale between the Duggar parents and the lawyers. The irony is that Josh, the one who's actually at the center of it all, will be the one whose voice will count the least.

ITA. Here's my take on this: As soon as the Feds swooped down on them in November, 2019, Jim Bob probably had a moment of total panic, assuming that they were after HIM for financial crimes, but quickly discarded this in favor of "that stupid Josh has screwed up again". A quick glance at the warrant probably confirmed this. JB then confronted Josh who stonewalled for a while but, more frightened of Daddy than the Feds, finally blubbered out the whole story. Michelle would have known everything right away. Despite his swagger, JB is a deeply insecure, easily frightened man and I think, except for when she's being "joyfully available", Michelle has always been a "mommy" figure for him. When anything bad happens, he instinctively runs to her for comfort and reassurance. Paralyzed with terror at another threat to their little kingdom, they fell back on a "wait and see" approach. Josh was told to keep his mouth shut (which he was glad to do) and they deliberately kept the other kids in the dark, telling them that the raid on the car lot was all a big mistake and didn't amount to anything. The kids, trained from birth to believe everything JB told them, accepted this. The sole exception would have been Jeremy, who would have become more determined to keep distancing himself and Jinger from the rest of the clan. TLC would have been harder to deal with and JB must have done some serious ducking and weaving when the network questioned him about the raid. The network brass probably decided not to cut ties with the Duggars just yet, but to scale back the number of episodes in case the shit hit the fan. As time went by and nothing happened, Josh and Michelle probably deluded themselves that it had all blown over. JB , slightly more realistic, was worried enough to consult Travis Story who was alarmed enough to bring Justin Gelfand into the picture. Gelfand would have told them "Don't kid yourselves, the Feds don't just give up and go away. Sooner or later, they'll arrest him." That's when we started to see some odd things happening. JB began shifting his assets around though the maze of LLCs. There were hastily-arranged, low-key weddings that TLC didn't seem to be involved with. This may have caused the younger kids to suspect something weird was going on and to start whispering and speculating among themselves, but I don't think they knew the truth until Josh was taken into custody last week. At some point, Anna was let in on the secret, either because JB decided it was time to tell her or, more likely, because Josh blurted it out to her in a weak moment. Anna, who is not the sharpest tool in the drawer, decided that the best way for her to "help" was to launch an aggressive social media campaign portraying her, Josh and the kids as the perfect young Fundie family and to stick to her baby-every-other-year schedule. As to what happens now, I think Story and Gelfand will eventually recommend that Josh plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. The Duggars will resist, terrified at the prospect of Josh going to prison and knowing that a guilty plea will destroy their image and mean the end of the TV show . They will cling to the deluded hope that a trial would result in an acquittal, allowing them to claim "vindication" (and they have just enough loyal leghumpers left to encourage them in this belief). I think it will come down to JB wanting a guilty plea and Michelle insisting on going to trial (Josh won't actually get a vote). It'll be interesting to see who wins this one.

Because Michelle plays favorites and Jessa (along with Crown Prince Josh and Precious Miracle Josie) seems to be one of the few kids Michelle really loves. Narcissist that she is, I think Michelle sees Jessa as the daughter most like HER. Jessa was the "spunky" one, the "hot" one, the one who would have been a cheerleader and mowed the lawn in a bikini if Gothard would have allowed such things.

This shocked me a little the first time I heard it. Priscilla seems so dim and childlike that I always think of her as being quite a bit younger than she actually is.

As long as Michelle is still alive, Anna will stop at 18 kids. She wouldn't dare piss off the Queen Mother by matching or topping her record.

I'll bet that secretly Josh would love to be able to get a vasectomy. He clearly doesn't want more children and I doubt if he has any religious scruples about it. But even though he's always been "sly", he'd never be able to get away with it. First of all, how would he pay for it? I doubt if he has any health insurance and even if he does, he'd never dare leave a paper trail that would reveal he'd gotten snipped. And I'm sure that he's not allowed to handle any large amounts of cash. While Jesus may have forgiven Josh, I doubt if Jim Bob will ever trust Josh as far as he could throw him. Jim Bob probably keeps him on a very tight allowance, paying their bills himself and dribbling out tiny amounts of cash as needed. And ever since his fall from grace, Josh has virtually been under house arrest. Jim Bob and Michelle may have relaxed their idiotic rules somewhat for the other children, but I don't believe Josh is ever allowed to set foot outside the compound without Jim Bob knowing exactly where 's going and without a accountability partner, one that JB would absolutely trust to never let Josh out of sight. Even Anna (who knows which side her bread is buttered on) would rat Josh out to his father in a heartbeat if she thought he was even contemplating something like a vasectomy.

Well, her mother warned her “It doesn’t take very long” (although Michelle seemed to regard that as a good thing).

And Jill may be aware that Jana's "gardening" is all faked for the public and she doesn't really have any specialized knowledge.

She learned that little trick from her mom. Michelle trotted out the claim that she had suffered from bulimia when the TLC spotlight was turning away from her and towards her pretty young daughters and she had to come up with something to yank the focus back onto herself.

I think they probably tell themselves that the good fortune of these sinful, prideful people is only a fluke and a temporary condition (sent to test the faith of the Godly) and that they will receive their eternal comeuppance in the fiery pits of Hell.

I think this is exactly what's happening here, but Jeremy may be in danger of overplaying his hand. I would assume that, in the past, most of MacArthur's protégés who have been rewarded with degrees for basically doing nothing have kept a fairly low profile. Perhaps they strutted around the campus and lorded it over their less-favored fellow students, but they didn't advertise their privileged status with a social media blast. Jeremy is constantly showing off and giving everyone the impression that he is not being required to do any serious work at all. MacArthur has had to deal with accusations of favoritism in the past and he's always bluffed his way through, but he probably feels that he doesn't need any more bad publicity. People are talking about Jeremy and wondering what the hell is going on. Maybe right now, they're people MacArthur doesn't care about, but eventually they will be. If Jeremy pushes it too far, he may suddenly find himself on his mentor's bad side (and I have a feeling that MacArthur can be very nasty when he turns on someone). Of course, MacArthur may still be laboring under the belief that Jinger's fanbase can be turned to his advantage and that Jeremy's mad skillz as an "influencer" make him a good investment, but eventually he's going to see that nothing's happening for him there.

The baby was conceived through IVF after many, many unsuccessful attempts. I wonder if this is something Michelle has tried. It would seem to violate their beliefs, but I could see her doing it on the QT if she thought she could get that magical 20th kid. And she could still legitimately claim "I gave birth to them all!".

"All you do now is try to sell things to your fans. It seems like you guys only care about money.". At least one leghumper has seen the light!

The days of TLC-funded honeymoons in romantic foreign cities are long past (not that the Duggars ever appreciated it, anyway).

Plus, the more pitiful and "needy" they look, the better it is for grifting.

Fresh fruit is a luxury reserved exclusively for the parents. Remember the video where David presented Jill with a fresh coconut? She gorged herself on it, raving about how delicious it was, while her pitiful children stood around her, watching and drooling.

It seems to be the wedding they're ignoring. It's tomorrow, so presumably they're busy getting ready for it and yet nobody is talking about it. I occasionally drop by the Duggars' Facebook page because the leghumpers' comments are so over-the-top hilarious (predictably, they LOVED this week's episode and they're still whining about how unfair it is that their beloved Josh can't be on the show). Not only is there no mention of the wedding this weekend, but there's never been a mention of Jed!'s engagement or even of Katey's existence on this planet. Very weird.