Churchhoney

I'm distracted by Izzy's cargo shorts, which for some reason look especially hilarious to me with a diaper sticking out of them.

Seems as if they have about half a dozen speaker-type guests, with JDS probably having the widest name recognition. Hard to imagine anybody's going to take home more than a few thou from this. Browsing the webpage I couldn't help but think that Jessa and the last speaker listed, a relationship coach who argues for "Dating with a Purpose," should have a cage match. (I think she's been discussed here before, but I really love her list of topics in the context of Jessa's attendance): Dating with a Purpose lady says: "How do you know if you have given your date a fair chance to demonstrate their 'mate' potential? Jessa says: Daddy said it was okay. D w/a p lady: "Are you so infatuated that you avoid seeing the obvious red flags that make this date a poor partnership choice?" Jessa: Daddy said it was okay. D w/a P lady says she'll explain: "The purpose of first dates and why you need to have as many of them as possible." Jessa: Daddy said you should never date at all, and anybody who's had three first dates -- like my mom, Michelle -- is a hellbound slut. (sorry, Mom) D w/a P lady will also explain: "Sorting and screening skills to use on your first three dates." Jessa: Daddy says if he's okay. D w/a P lady will tell us: "The Top 7 signs that your date is a 'keeper.' Jessa: Daddy said there are three signs. If he's breathing, he asks for your hand, and he loves Jesus, you have to keep him. Forever. https://southernshows.com/wch/happening/feature/373

It would call for a great paper engineer who could create a first-of-its-kind pop-up that stood up for three seconds and then collapsed. : ) She has no clue at all, and, as they say, she's old enough to know better.

I suppose it if didn't have a cover, any time the RV turned the child would be smothered in clothes that had fallen off the hangers above. For the benefit of future children, any young couple who contemplates going the Duggar/Bates/Rodriguez childbearing route should be forced to spend a few days in a cold uncomfortable room staring at these images of what happens to the children -- the RV baby cover, the dead-eyed Duggar lost girls compared to their bright-eyed older sisters at the same age when the family was of manageable size, etc. etc. etc. Cruelty Incorporated.

No kidding. That's uncanny. .... Who knew Alfred E. was the prototype of stupid, lazy fundie men who aspire to having two dozen children?

I assume the book would start with an, ahem, pop-up Jim Bob? I can't believe I just made your tacky and tasteless suggestion even more tacky and tasteless. ETA: In more good news for the Duggars, a book by Michelle about her kids wouldn't cost too much in artists' salaries since all the kids would look just the same.

My sense of what the Duggars kind of believe is that similar to how the woman interviewed in this article describes Christian Reconstructionism in her book. http://www.salon.com/2015/07/31/secrets_of_the_extreme_religious_right_inside_the_frightening_world_of_christian_reconstructionism They may not have as much Calvinism as there is in here (although there's definitely more Calvinism expressed in the TTH now that Ben has arrived...), but a lot of this is kind of what they embrace dimly, it seems to my inexpert eye. This is an interesting article in that tackles a lot, trying to say how homeschooling, Confederate sympathies and sort of libertarian economics tie in, for example. And of course the Duggs embrace it only dimly because they're, you know, pretty dim.

Plus it's pretty difficult to distinguish Boob from J. Alfred Newman. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1708&bih=761&q=j+alfred+newman&oq=j+alfred+newman&gs_l=img.3..0i8i30.993.5319.0.5602.19.17.2.0.0.0.170.1504.5j8.13.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..7.12.1251.g4ycwH1-PwQ

I like parrots, but I don't think they're capable of that degree of language comprehension. ; )

I hope she starts off with six boys in a row. ETA: I meant this when I wrote it. But then I realized that soon after boy two is when she'd start paying attention to Jordyn again.

Ben Seewald: Fearless promulgator of Fox News talking points. Maybe he scored a deal and Roger Ailes is paying him.

Yep, I'm sure you could read books written at the Duggar reading level. I guess the sad thing is, though, that they probably have to really concentrate hard to read even low-level stuff. That's a recipe for cementing a hate for reading, really. I read an article this weekend about a homeschool curriculum that I'd heard of but never really known much about -- David Quine's Worldviews of the Western World. https://homeschoolersanonymous.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/but-for-one-mistake-samaels-story/ Although it would obviously be way way way over the Duggars' heads, so they'd never use it, it seems to embrace a pernicious idea about reading that really reminds me of how they seem to approach all external messages: "It must be said for this curriculum that it does involve the pupil reading books with which he or she disagrees—indeed, books with which the author of the curriculum disagrees—which makes the use of this curriculum marginally better than outright book-burning, but the way in which it guides the pupil to read them is highly problematic, and, what is worse, it creates a habit in the pupil of continuing to read everything that he or she ever reads in the same way (I still catch myself doing it now and again). "Quine’s curriculum tells the pupil that he or she already possesses all the Answers to the great questions of life (prime reality, human nature, ethics & evil, etc.) and then instructs him or her to read these works to figure out why the Answers that the works provide are Wrong. "To put it in simple terms, Quine teaches pupils to see the devil in every human thought or word (excepting, of course, Quine’s own interpretation of the Holy Writ). "But this does not only color the pupil’s interactions with new media; it affects how he or she relates to fellow students and even professors when he or she attends university. He or she seeks to proselytize the other person, to convince the other person that his or her Answers are absolutely and totally correct and that the other person’s pre-existing Answers are absolutely and totally incorrect—except insofar as they coincide with his or her own Answers. "He or she does not wish to exchange with other people, to swap information and refine his or her own Answers in light of new data (and hopefully help the other person refine his or her Answers as well). "In essence, such a person becomes impossible to teach or reason with." Can't help but think of Jessa and Ben (without the actual reading of anything, though, I suppose.)

It seems strange that he's having work done presumably to bring his jaws into alignment, but now it looks as if the bottom half of his face isn't in line with the top half. Is that usual with this kind of surgery? Cause ... yeeps. Maybe he's thinking the big Tony-Orlando mustache will camouflage his current Picasso-woulda-loved-it look?

Yeah, here's their 990. http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/52-1792772/family-research-council.aspx For the record, I absolutely did not mean to imply that FRC would or could ever hire him again. When people think about them, they think about him, and someone would sniff him out. But that wouldn't be true of plenty of other places, and there really are no people who spend a lot of time looking for this kind of small gotcha thing inside of conservative advocacy groups. If he were a liberal, James O'Keefe would move heaven and earth to find his resting place. But there really are no such dedicated sleuths against conservative groups that I know of. I don't think anybody will necessarily conduct a campaign to get him. But I also think that if he wants such a job, he can ask for it and someone will be very likely to see some marginal benefit in it and would take him on. This kind of background schmoozing thing would actually be a lot more suitable for him than much of the FRC job, I think. Because, as you say, he's not an orator. He is a smarmy schmoozer, though, and, most likely, a brown-noser and suck-up extraordinaire when he thinks it's called for, and he's even been on tv, and he's seen by some as a martyr. It's hard to get my brain around, but I'm pretty sure that this combination is actually quite appealing to some people.

I've been flying a lot for the past several years. And what I notice is the very small number of people who are reading anything -- books, magazines, newspapers -- while waiting in the airport or while on the plane. A few are reading. A lot are flipping through their phone screens and texting or playing one of those candy-stacking games. And a lot are just staring into space looking bored. This makes me wonder how many people today are actually reading anything but texts, tweets, and Instagram captions. Because is there a more likely place and time to read than when you're waiting around for hours to get from one place to a distant other place? I can't think of one. And yet that doesn't seem to occur to very many people. Disturbs me. That said, I expect the Duggars are still on the far bottom end of the reading scale. Because most people don't read because it doesn't occur to them or they're a little lazy or they don't think they can find anything interesting to read. While the Duggars are almost philosophically opposed to reading, I think. Plus, other people at least read news snippets online and watch tv and movies, where they see stories and even news and documentaries. The Duggs? Pretty much nothin except stuff they know already and absolutely know they'll agree with. That's truly scary.

I completely agree that it's not clear Josh wants a political job. All I'm saying is that I believe he could get one, in a certain capacity. And I kind of think that in the end it actually could turn out to be one of his more realistic options. I also agree that it wouldn't be a job for a candidate or an office holder but for an organization. Individuals don't employ a ton of people and the candidate always supplies a face for everybody to love, hate, blame and tie everything back to. So everybody on such a staff ends up being in kind of a public-facing position and, as you say, the public gets to veto people's employment. And Josh is way vetoable, to most of us. I can see him getting a job with a conservative organization, though. Since voters and volunteers and even the media don't directly interact with or even much think about what goes on behind the scenes in organizations, organization staff are much less likely to be the object of complaints or even of any snooping to find out about them. They're just acting as middlemen, and they can easily be visible to one group while remaining virtually invisible to many others. An organization staff that carefully strategizes could simply trot Josh out to woo some particular people who remain Duggar champions and still hide him completely from everybody else. He wouldn't any longer be making public appearances but would be talking only with certain leaders known to be sympathetic -- as quite a few influential Christian conservatives have been -- or to carefully chosen small groups. Then those people could promise to go out and rev up their congregations, radio audiences or friends in favor of whatever issue or candidate the organization in question wants votes for -- and the congregants/audience/friends would never even know that the leaders even talked to the organization, let alone to Josh. All of this can go on very quietly -- and it does, all the time -- and if by chance somebody did find out, any public outrage wouldn't actually have anywhere to go. You can vote against Mike Huckabee. But how do you vote against IBLP, or The Heritage Foundation? There might be a small public flap, but it very likely wouldn't have long-lasting consequences, since noone would even know what issues they'd been using him to support. There are certainly pitfalls and questions about his having a political job like this. For one thing, as you mention, he might have to leave home, which he may well not be inclined to do. Not a whole lot of national political activity in Tonittown. Nevertheless, I think equivalent barriers might exist for any job he might get. He seems to share the Duggar trait of having no particular skills, which seems to fit them only for manual labor or for something that's somewhat customer-facing. Josh doesn't seem cut out for manual labor, so what does that leave him with? Another used-car lot? Being the office guy for the towing business? (does that still even exist?) Flipping houses for Jim Bob? Most if not all of the possibilities that I can think of seem to be some kind of sales or other money dealings that involve regular people .... and there would be a huge squick factor there from potential clients and customers, I expect. The public doesn't have the stomach for making deals with devilish people the way you actually have to in politics. In politics, if you want a certain law passed, you have literally no choice but to muck around in the back rooms with as many small or large constituencies as you need to turn up the votes, even if some of those constituencies employ -- or even are wholly made up of -- people who dance with the devil. But when it comes to making real-estate deals or buying cars (or hamburgers), you may well be able to go make a deal with somebody down the block who doesn't squick you out. Who's really going to want to buy their next ride, house, or chicken sandwich from a child molester? Is Jim Bob going to want Josh as the fresh young face of the Duggar real-estate empire? I really wonder. I agree that he's not employable in many jobs in politics. But I don't think he's very employable in most other possible jobs, either. And I think there are places in politics where he could hide out and be considered well worth a modest paycheck.

I totally agree that this is true of people at large. But I think you still have a ton of pols and political operatives on the right who share Josh's "religious" convictions and his belief that he's been definitively forgiven and his smarm. And I expect a lot of those will be perfectly happy to view him as a fellow conservative Christian martyr who happens to have been crucified by hypocritical liberals for something he did as an unknowing child. He won't ever be the public face of anybody's franchise again and nobody will want a shared photo op. But lots of people in the back room -- both the top people and their staffs -- have no gag reflexes, and I think his tv-star sheen plus his martyr sheen would make him quite acceptable as a water carrier there, with the right crowd who share the political worldview of IBLP or the like. I can easily see people like Jim DeMint, Sam Brownback, Dick Armey, Scott Walker, Sarah Palin and many many others being perfectly happy to shake Josh's hand and chat with him over coffee about their many mutual concerns. I honestly don't think the "child molester" thing would even cross anybody's mind in that kind of scenario. Nobody in the public ever gets even a glimpse of what goes on as the sausage is made inside an ideologically consistent network of people. Heck, look at the recent Koch brothers gathering -- where they got the top news outlets in the nation to agree that they would not report on sponsors and the like in what was actually a kind of public meeting that the press was invited to. Top national press outlets actually agreed to this. And the kind of completely secret deal-discussing and dealmaking events that are where the actual work gets done are utterly inaccessible to everyone. He can scurry around with a ton of other little operatives in a warren of little rooms in a big building somewhere, and nobody will ever know. (Which is not to say that I see him making a big salary off of this -- and unlike most others in those rooms, he'll have no hope of ever becoming more prominent and gaining real power. Still, that doesn't mean he wouldn't be welcome as a water carrier.)

My guess would be all of the above. Having the kids friendless fits in perfectly with all of JB and M's various needs and agendas. And since neither cares about anything but themselves, nothing beyond that fact ever penetrates, I expect.

Speaking as an ex-child-not-permitted-to-have-friends, it's a horrible thing to do to a person. Warps you for life. Even worse when it's done by parents who, as kids, had friends. Michelle should be very ashamed of herself. Also horrible is the fact that this never crosses her mind.

Yep, I think a team makes sense. Makes me kind of sad, though, that somebody smart enough to effectively strategize all that might work for IBLP. Oh, well, as long as the strategist doesn't use the Wisdom Booklets to educate his kids.

She really does look like a waif. Poor little thing. Photo evidence has long suggested that Jessa's been over at the house and otherwise hanging out with the fam a lot even in her wedded bliss. Seems as if she could have gone right on giving Jordyn attention. Jill hung in there with her buddy group, at least until she went off to be an expat. Of course, it's ridiculous that they have to do this for their siblings, when those kids have parents. Too bad the parents had 19 damn kids, making most of them effectively orphans.

What I question is whether he could produce the plan! I was thinking that they'd have to be paying the strategist/analyst/numbers person and Josh the voter-attractor, in which case his monetary value is a little less! So you think he may have the research and analyst abilities as well? If so, then he's probably well fixed.

Somebody gave her a birthday party. I may be missing something, but I don't see any Duggar-related adults in the photos, though. Not even Sierra. (How did that happen?) https://www.facebook.com/duggarfamilyofficial The oldest person I recognize is Josiah. With no Marjorie visible, by the by. https://www.facebook.com/duggarfamilyofficial/photos/pb.510067475793573.-2207520000.1438549646./692071257593193/?type=1&theater

Well, so few people vote in our non-Presidential years, and fewer still vote in party primaries, that I think just about anything or anybody could wield influence if things were managed correctly. I'm pretty sure there are places where leghumpers could get a particular Republican nominated for a House seat or some high-level state post, for example, and possibly even places where they could push that person into office, even if other Republicans stayed home from the polls. So, if they used him very very strategically, I imagine he might still influence a few elections. Don't know if that would be enough to warrant anybody paying him much of a salary, though.

She would have smashed them. But she has a missing muscle in her back.