mynextmistake

Prosecutors and law enforcement have qualified immunity, which means you can’t sue them for most discretionary decisions. I’m sure they waited as long as they did to build their case as strongly as possible. Tipping off Josh or anyone in the family could have led to potential abscondment, destruction of evidence, or any number of other problems. And as bad as having Josh be around kids for a year during the pendency of the case could have been, it would be worse if he were guilty and acquitted and allowed to be around kids with no conditions for the rest of his adult life.

No, that’s not a valid legal defense to the charges. I supposed he could argue it in mitigation during sentencing if he pleads out or is found guilty, unless you’re limited to statutory mitigators in federal court?

No, I believe they are still on. I stand corrected!

I spent yesterday evening trying to figure out why I am having unexpectedly warm feelings about Derick and Jill. I think this whole thing has brought out some of my own trauma, and separating that out has been harder than I expected. But ultimately, I think this is where I am. I think that over the past couple of years Derick and Jill have grown up. I think Derick sought out JB and his particular brand of fundamentalism when he was a young man who was confused and scared. He’d lost his dad, his mom had cancer, and I think he was looking for certainty. A clear set of rules that, when followed, would make him safe and happy. In my experience, this is what drives a lot of people to extremism of one sort or another. The idea that the world can be black and white, hard decisions can be easy, that something exists that can make everything okay. It’s a kind of magical thinking, if you will, and Derick embraced it and everything that went along with it — homeschooling, women in long denim skirts, no birth control, courting. All of it. Then, for whatever reason, things on the show went south. Maybe it was financial. Maybe he did get fired. Maybe saw JB strongarming his fragile wife into the Josh Apology Tour and something just snapped. I don’t know. But he started to pull away, and he took Jill with him. Then he went to law school. Law school can be a very transformative experience, in that people who go in believing the world is black and white will quickly learn that it’s actually thousands of shades of grey. I think this is what we’ve seen from Derick. He, and they, started easing up on the fundamentalism. Jill started wearing pants in the TTH. They bought a house and made friends. They started not only using birth control but using it unapologetically. They put the kids in public school. They established boundaries with the Duggars. Jill went to counseling, certainly with Derick’s support if not at his suggestion. Instead of Focus on the Family or another conservative religious organization, Derick spent his summers working for the public defender’s office and the Clinton Foundation. He stopped making hateful statements about other people on Twitter. He grew up. So did Jill. Do I think he’s become a saint? Not particularly. But the world isn’t black and white, and people aren’t good or bad. We’re all grey. I get the sense that some people wouldn’t be satisfied until Derick and Jill renounce all the tenets of conservative Christianity. And that’s okay! I just don’t think it’s going to happen. I don’t think they’re ever going to be pro choice, or think being trans is okay. But at least they’ve stopped preaching hate, and broken from Gothardism. They’ve made progress. And that, at least, is something.

Oh yeah. I don’t think either of them would cross the street to spit on the other if they were on fire. If JB is expecting legal support from Derick I think he is going to be very disappointed.

I guess I don’t feel like I’m putting Derick on a pedestal. I recognize he can still be a jerk. But Jill has changed a ton over the past couple of years and seems happier and healthier than ever before, and I think Derick is probably responsible for a lot of those changes. Their kids will almost certainly have relatively normal lives with friends, public school, and regular church instead of zillions of siblings and homeschool and some pastor who comes by to preach in the basement. Basically I think the whole family is better off, and if Derick had never rocked the boat I think a lot of these changes would never have occurred. So I do give him some credit for that. Also it looks to me like all he did was respond to a couple of Twitter posts that were directed at him in the first place. He didn’t issue a statement or hold a press conference or anything. I don’t see that as making anything harder for Jill or her siblings.

Fair point. I guess I have a mental continuum of assholery and JB and Michelle are so much worse than Derick that I have a hard time caring about him complaining about them, which seems to be what people are objecting to. Maybe I’m misinterpreting, it’s been a long day.

JB and Michelle should have shown some respect to Josh’s victims (you know, their own kids) 20 years ago by dealing with him appropriately. Barring that, they should have shown some respect to his new victims (the kids in those images) and his old victims (you know, their own kids, who they might have expected to find yesterday’s news particularly distressing) yesterday by shutting *their* mouths instead of bleating “prayer blah blah we love you Joshie!!!!! 😘❤️👑” in a statement. But they didn’t, so I’m not really too concerned that Derick might be hurting their feelings. JMO, of course.

I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive. I think his point, as I understand it, is that Jim Bob and Michelle control the new show just as much as they control the old one. It isn’t the kids who are on the show, even the older married ones, who are benefiting, because they only get what JB and Michelle decide that they deserve. Even the adult kids don’t have their own contracts with TLC. Everything is routed through Jim Bob. For all we know, Jim Bob was still giving money to Josh. He’s probably really angry that his in-laws allowed their son to abuse his wife, then go onto abuse other girls, then go on to look at videos of other children being abused. I think it’s natural that he wants to end something that they are really the only ones who benefit from.

Yeah. I’m not sure they banked on Kendra’s fertility. They could easily have more than 19 at this rate.

I do not see them going to trial on this, unless it’s to make some kind of weird political point. I know a lot of very conservative people who hold what I consider to be very wacky beliefs, and not one of them would be okay with a grown man looking at pictures depicting sexual abuse of minors. Even hardened criminals, like murderers, hate these guys.

I think Jill has changed a lot since she made those statements, though. She’s distanced from her family and has entered therapy. She’s talked about establishing healthier boundaries and has gotten much more vocal about the fact that she is doing many things differently from her parents (limiting family size, sending kids to public school, attending a normal SBC church). I would be surprised if she still held those beliefs today. I think Derick has changed too. I think going to a secular law school and doing internships at the public defender’s office and the Clinton foundation have possibly opened his mind about some things. They’re still conservative, and they probably always will be, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that they’ve changed. They are leading much, much more mainstream lives than I ever would have expected. I just don’t see them locking their daughters (if they have any) in their rooms or forcing Izzy and Sam to have accountability partners.

I’m sure the kids still under JB’s roof will toe the party line. However, I’m not sure that the married kids will be as willing to do so. Keep in mind that most of them have little girls of their own now, and if they have any parental instincts at all they are likely having a visceral reaction of disgust and horror at the fact that their brother enjoys watching kids get abused. We already know how Derick feels. I strongly suspect that Jeremy/Jinger are completely done with Josh after this. I think that Joe was already sticking a few toes out the Duggar door and is now likely to follow those toes with his feet and, hopefully, the rest of his body and those of his wife and children. JD had a hard time coping when Josh was looking at *adult* pornography, and I doubt he will be any more forgiving of him now. If Jed! has any hopes of a real political career he can’t afford to publicly support Josh. So I don’t think their wagons will be in the circle. I can’t get a read on Austin, Josiah, or the other one who just got married (Jason? Jacob?) so I don’t know what to expect from them. Really, the only married couple I expect to be vocally supportive are Jessa and Ben, and I think that will be driven by Jessa, not by Ben.

That’s not entirely accurate. Sex offender treatment programs have been shown to lower the rate of recidivism quite a bit. There’s no way to tell if a program would have worked in Josh’s case, of course, but it would have had a better chance of working than what they did do.

I’ve been critical of Jill in the past. But it has been so refreshing to see her and her family taking steps toward a more normal life over the past couple years; enrolling Izzy in public school, buying a regular house with a mortgage, spending less time with her family, going to therapy… I think it is clear that Jill has become a stronger person and is at least beginning to come to terms with the fact that her upbringing was completely messed up. If she reads here, I want her to know that today I, for one, am having nothing but positive thoughts for her, she and her family will be in my prayers, and that none of this is her fault. A lot of us out here are survivors, Jill, and we’ve got your back.

One of the very sad things about this is that if he had gotten real help when he molested his sisters, this all might have been avoided. I’m not even saying that JB and Michelle had to turn him into the police. But they could have enrolled him in a sex offender treatment program, or at the very least in real counseling with a licensed therapist. They could’ve told him that his behavior wasn’t OK, that it was within his control, and that victimizing other people is unacceptable. Instead, they swept everything under the rug, forced the girls to forgive him for the abuse, told him he wasn’t culpable because Satan had built a fortress in his heart, and sent him to help some guy finish his kitchen. Anyone who is speculating that JB and Michelle, or Anna, or any of the other players in this sordid little tale are going to respond any differently this time then they have on all the previous occasions is, in my opinion, going to be disappointed. Their come to Jesus moment should’ve been when their teenage son molested their five year old daughter (or, in Anna‘s case, when she learned about said abuse). It didn’t happen then, it’s not going to happen now.

Exactly. I have heard of cases where people went to sites like Porn Hub assuming all content there was 18+ and inadvertently viewed a video of a 17-year-old, but I doubt those cases get prosecuted. There’s no way you can look at a picture of an 11-year-old and think it’s of an adult.

Well, sure. But this isn’t a case where someone left the kids in the car for fifteen minutes to run into the grocery store and an overzealous CPS staff member decided to go after them for neglect. It’s not even a case where a parent is being investigated for completely unknowingly letting a child abuser into their kids’ lives. Anna knew that as a teenager Josh *sexually abused a five year old* and not only stayed with him, but assisted his family in downplaying his conduct, continued to praise him as a spouse and father, and had more kids with him. She’s either in deep, deep denial or she truly doesn’t think sex abuse is a big deal. Either way, I think it is very unlikely that she is going to have an “ah ha!” moment now and morph into a caring, protective mother. As I said before, *if* she is appropriately protective, meaning not only that she keeps the kids away from Josh but also that she follows all CPS recommendations regarding interviews, counseling, etc. for them, then I don’t see a reason that they should be removed from her care. I’m just deeply, deeply skeptical that this is what will happen.

The feds don’t play around with bail conditions, though. If Josh is released, he’s either going to be on an ankle monitor that will track his location or have a 24-hour third-party custodian to monitor his movements. And keep in mind that this case will get serious press attention and all eyes will be on the Duggars. If he violates his conditions someone will inform the Feds. They’ll revoke his bail (bye-bye JB’s money), he’ll go back to jail and His third-party custodian could then face charges for not monitoring him appropriately. CPS should be monitoring things too, and if Anna sneaks the kids in to see him or let’s him come to the house those kids will be removed from her custody. They won’t be placed with JB and Michelle, either — the best she could hope for is that they’d go to the Kellers or one of Josh’s siblings, who I damn well hope would keep him away so they don’t lose their own kids, That’s what I’m telling myself, at least.

I am literally in tears. I was so hoping it wouldn’t be something involving children. Those poor kids, you guys. Just... those poor kids. Children’s services had to get involved now, though, right? Someone is going to make Anna protect those kids?

I don’t disagree with any of this. But as a mother, I find Anna’s behavior repugnant. I love my husband, we’ve been together for almost 25 years, but if I found out he was an admitted *child molester* I would grab Mini Mistake and nope on out of here so fast that his head would spin. (Note: I am not speculating that Josh abused his kids. I have no reason to think he did. I pray he did not.) But staying with him, and *having more kids with him* after learning he was *capable* of doing that? That’s where Anna loses all my sympathy. When you have a child, your obligation is to put that child and their safety above all else, even your marriage.

But seriously, there is no question in my mind that JB, at least, knew this was coming. That’s probably why he marched Jed and… The other one who got married recently to the altar so fast. The girl’s‘ families can’t back out now that they’re already lawfully wedded. The question is, did Anna know? It would seem awfully tone deaf of her to post what she has posted recently if she knew her husband was about to be arrested. I bet they didn’t say a word to her about it.

Jessa: It was no big deal! He just got a little too curious about other people’s money. It happens in a lot of used-car businesses.

Call me crazy, but considering that he’s flying a plane shouldn’t he be, you know, PAYING ATTENTION? I know these fundies are supposed to let Jesus take the wheel and all that, but unless Jesus has a pilot’s license I think I would be looking out the front window to make sure I wasn’t about to fly into a large boulder.

He looks so creepy I expected him to follow that with “so I keep them in a jar beside my bed.”