Churchhoney

And then there's the other Gothard brother, who in December was accused of this: 'State Attorney General Pam Bondi has sued a Naples businessman on racketeering and fraud charges, alleging he stole millions of dollars from victims nationwide — many of them elderly — by making false promises and offering stocks that turned out to be worthless.... '...Roger Nixon, 72,....a retired law enforcement officer who provided Bondi with all his records, compiled a list of roughly 200 victims he says lost about $5 million. “He’s defrauded us out of our life savings,” said Nixon, adding that he lost $285,000 after meeting Gothard through his church a decade ago. “We’re flat broke. We didn’t have hot water for a year.” 'Nixon said Gothard used his brother’s church ministry “to lure victims in the name of Christianity.” Since then, Nixon contracted Lyme disease and can’t afford treatment, lost vision in one eye, had a stroke and had to undergo a heart bypass last Christmas that he can’t pay for.' http://www.naplesnews.com/news/crime/state-sues-naples-businessman-saying-he-bilked-elderly-people-out-of-millions_44739110

And it actually goes beyond Gothard too, now, doesn't it? Voddie Baucham and Geoff Botkin, among others, preach this too and aren't (now, at least, and -- I don't think -- ever?) actual Gothard followers? The whole SAHD movement, which is bigger than Gothard, is basically this -- although maybe without the umbrella diagrams.

Here ya go: http://realmrhousewi...-manager-hired/ http://realmrhousewi...ager-not-hired/ http://www.christian...scandal-139688/

To my eye, anyway, JimBob kind of seems to portray himself as this poor straggler who rose on his own from nothing. But the real estate business was already in its third-generation -- with the family's name on it, looks like -- when his father had it..... When you inherit a business like that that's already known and established in your area and you're carrying it into its fourth generation, you generally kind of are born on third base. So JimBob didn't actually hit a triple as a businessman, no matter what he'd like to believe.

Sorry. No. The robot's much funnier.

They may not have been able to use any of their restaurant gift cards in the past week either, since the two things so often go together.

The escapee show probably would be interesting to watch. But as a person who escaped to college from a (non-church/cult-inspired) family situation with many similarities to the Duggar household, I have to say that it gives me the willies to think of any of those kids having their escapes videotaped. For me, anyway, that was by far the most difficult, confused, messed up, messy crazed period of my life. I knew that I had to keep myself together enough to work at jobs and do well in school, but the cost of that effort was scary emotional uproar in the rest of my life, amid constant, constant revelations about just how out-of-the-ordinary -- and nuts -- my upbringing had been. Even though I'd gone to public school, I'd otherwise been pretty completely isolated from other people, and I truly had no idea how normal people behaved and lived. So the most everyday things surprised and stunned me. And it's emotionally exhausting to be stunned several times a day. I felt like a frigging alien. And it took me by surprise, too. I was not an emotional basketcase-type kid at all when I was at home. I coped and basically just got on with things. I was the glue that helped hold other people together, in fact. So feeling my mind go out of control six ways to Sunday when I first navigated the outside world was another awful shock to me. And of course when you've escaped you don't really have a support system. Even the people at home who sympathize are still people that you have to support and protect, rather than expecting them to support you. I don't know that this is how the Duggar kids would feel if they broke Duggar. But i think there's a pretty good chance that some would. And if they did find themselves in that situation, they wouldn't want cameras and microphones around. But how the real-world affects them would have taken them by surprise,as it did me, and then it'd be too late to call off the TLC production crew.

Yep. I was afraid my bluff would be called the minute I read a Hastert story in which the FBI mentioned (more than once?) his history as a high-school wrestling coach. They weren't just throwing that in for local color. I remember exchanging jokes at the time about the long line of candidates that dropped out draped in closet skeletons before the mantle landed on Denny, and how a high school coach might have had more opportunities than others to be caught with a dead girl or a live boy. I guess by the time they got to him as a Speaker candidate, the GOP was tired of looking under beds. He and Josh can reminisce about their days of being thought leaders for the Republican party. Will be interesting to see if this does knock the Duggars off the front pages.... In some outlets it will, but the DH story still doesn't have nearly as many tentacles into different subject areas as the Duggar story does.

Here's the stuff about the crisis manager. My sense is that JimBob decided to call the guy himself, rather than TLC, but who knows? In any case, working with most crisis managers, especially if you're an individual rather than a giant corporation, is kind of like working with a lawyer. The client and the professional have to agree about the ground rules, or they won't work together, regardless of who wants them to. Here are the stories from the blog that first (I think) reported it: http://realmrhousewife.com/2015/05/25/exclusive-duggars-crisis-manager-hired/ http://realmrhousewife.com/2015/05/27/exclusive-duggar-family-crisis-manager-not-hired/ The Christian Post has also done an interview with the guy: http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-pr-expert-says-josh-duggars-apology-is-not-enough-to-satisfy-sexual-molestation-scandal-139688/

But not her toes! (Or Anna's either.) Thanks! BG

And with much uglier clothes.

Because trying to pull wool over people's eyes has been JimBob's and Michelle's main occupation for years now? But I'm sure they see it as good old lying for God.

Patheos Evangelical channel not all on board with Josh, either: "My question to those who have no shame in publicly supporting Josh Duggar is this – When do you plan on hiring him to be the face of your ministry and your national spokesman? Will Mike Huckabee chuck his current staff for Josh to take their place....Will Ray Comfort make Josh a co-host and face of his ministry like Kirk Cameron was in the past? I’m waiting gentlemen. "If all this big mess is about is FORGIVENESS then logic tells me that you all should have zero problem making Josh Duggar the face of your ministry. But you and I and the whole world knows that it is about more than forgiveness, it’s about TRUST, BETRAYAL and HYPOCRISY. I’ve already stated more than once on my radio show that I believe Josh Duggar is forgiven by God if he truly repented. What I have a serious problem with is how his parents handled it.....How come Christian talk show hosts have not said a peep about this scandal? "....Forgiving someone doesn’t mean you have to trust them." http://www.patheos.com/blogs/biblenewsradio/if-forgiving-josh-duggar-for-molesting-his-victims-is-all-it-takes-then-mike-huckabee-evangelism-explosion-ray-comfort-todd-friel-should-hire-him-to-be-the-face-of-their-ministries/

Interesting that everybody knows about it being the sisters. I guess there are some details that we all find so riveting that we notice them even when they aren't played up. That fact is pretty much what's spelling the end of the Duggars here, I guess. I don't know. Unless Denny's paying off somebody he incestuously molested, I kind of doubt it.

I think it's especially alluring to belong to a group, and to be told by somebody who's cool and charismatic in some way that the group -- and you along with it -- are part of some greater purpose, vision, whatever. The charm of a leader and then the instincts of that leader to make people feel they're part of something bigger and highly meaningful by following him/her are really important draws, I think. Unfortunately, we're all capable of falling for charm and charisma, and sometimes we rational-thinker types are more easily misled by the "big vision" part than others are. ..... I do think that some people are less likely to go in than others and that skeptics are often more immune. But it looks like the cults that have been most successful have had something to tempt some people of every sort, including the cranky questioners. Just finished reading the Jenna Miscavige book about her life in Scientology. And while she was born into it and the lifelong exposure helped to keep her and her family trapped, it was clear that the idea of being part of an important mission to save the world was a big part of what bound them. Scary. One thing that made me laugh, though (even though it's also kind of horrible), was the similarity between L. Ron Hubbard's obsession with redefining words and making sure everybody knew how wrong their typical definitions of words were and Gothard's/ATI's very similar approach. The Scientology courses that Jenna M described, and her confusion about words that did not mean what you think they mean, and so on, seemed as if they wouldn't change very much at all if somebody simply swapped out Hubbard's material for a few Wisdom Booklets and instruction in "defrauding." All these "theories" that some of the most successful cult leaders use to sell people on membership remind me of the kind of thinking and theorizing I remember doing when I was a pre-teen and young teenager, just starting to appreciate an intellectual approach to the worlld. Total sophistry and craziness, those theories and "analyses," but it all felt very meaningful at the time. Their theologies and philosophies are both nutso and adolescent when you really look at them. But when they develop these things into seemingly all-encompassing systems, it really draws people in, apparently.

Well, as Michelle told Jessa -- Have sex whenever Ben wants it. Don't worry -- "it doesn't take long"!

Apologies if this has already been posted. Here's an ex-Gothardite lawyer, graduate of Gothard-affiliated Oak Brook law school, on ATI-type fundieism and the Duggar situation. Nothing much here that we haven't heard or said already, but interesting given who's saying it, I think: http://fiddlrts.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-duggars-how-fundamentalisms.html?spref=fb One interesting part here that I haven't seen mentioned much, though: "c. Sexual desire is presented in a gendered way. "...The idea is that women don’t really want sex. However, they trade it (and their bodies) to men in exchange for commitment - that is, a promise of lifetime financial support. "Thus, females will always want to say no to sex, so the man will have to impose on them to some degree....Again, this makes for problems when it comes to a discussion of consent. Because women will never say “yes” voluntarily, “no” is meaningless.... "For a young man raised in this worldview, then, he has no real reason to hope that a woman might actually desire to have sex with him. Thus, at some point, he will simply have to take what he wants. And who might be available and weak enough to be imposed on? Perhaps young girls…"

Have you ever read any accounts on Recovering Grace or elsewhere of teenage girls' awful experiences trapped in cars with Gothard in his stocking feet and them in their flip flops? If not, and you'd REALLY like to feel sick, take a look at some of those. .... And he STILL insists that none of it was sexual, according to the last statements I remember. ETA: I have nothing against fetishes in general or foot fetishes in particular. But don't use them to surreptitiously corral unwitting people into fulfilling your sexual desires. And then lie about it. yeesh. (Now that I think about it, I guess Josh as a young teen going after the unconscious was pretty much doing it the Gothard way. more yuck.)

It is, but this is a very young guy (20-something, I believe) who appears ambitious. I don't know why, if you were JImBob, you would have called such a young person in the first place for something this big. But I suppose it may have been because one of his specialties is Christian entertainers. I agree that he probably should have just shut up. But,to be fair, strictly speaking he didn't make a statement about the client. He first said only that, after discussions, he had found that client didn't meet the criteria to be a match with his firm The reporting blogger asked what those criteria were, and the guy said that he wouldn't give specifics about the Duggars but he would tell the guy what his list of criteria included when it came to figuring out whether he and ANY client were a good match. ..... And as somebody who recently spent a couple of months speaking at length with a large number of crisis managers -- including small and large operators and several of the biggest names in the business -- I can tell you that the list he gave was the exact same list that I heard over and over again from them, and the same list that appears in books and articles written by and about crisis managers of all sorts, etc. He certainly talks too much, I'd agree, but he didn't say anything that isn't actually textbook in the field, and very basic. And he didn't name the specific dealbreakers that obtained in the Duggar case. I don't think the Duggars exactly turned him down, but I would bet that the decision not to make a deal was pretty mutual. Crisis managers that I talked to said that very often people think they want to hire a crisis manager. But when they hear about what the crisis-management firm will expect them to do, they realize that, no, they actually don't want to -- unless they can get the crisis managers to do things a different way. Several people told me that only a stupid and/or unethical crisis manager will change their way of operating -- or promise to -- to meet a client's objections. And this guy didn't want to do that, it looks like, so he and JimBob weren't a match, and they walked off in separate ways. Would be interesting to know whether there were other candidates and whether someone has taken the job. But I doubt we'll ever know since most people JimBob might have called aren't in their 20s and so would probably shut up.

Thanks for bringing up the obituary. I read it a few months ago and have wondered about it. Does it strike anyone else as odd that JImBob seems to really despise his father, and yet this obit is as warm as warm can be and actually attributes to his dad several positive qualities that JBD prides himSELF on? There seems to be such a disconnect. I wonder whether that means That JB's sister or mother DOESN"T hate Grandpa D, and one or both of them had full charge of the obit? Or maybe this is more of the whitewash and denial that JB (and maybe others in the family) is so good at regarding a lot of other things in is life (like, we now know, his oldest son)? Or what? There are deceased people in my family about whom many feel the kinds of things JB seems to feel about his father, and they did NOT get sweet glowy praise-heavy obituaries like this. Nobody would have had the inclination, or the stomach, to write a bunch of sweet Hallmark lies about their characters. They didn't get negative obits, either. But they got very straightforward, "just the facts, ma'am" accounts, with accomplishments listed but not glowed at. Anyway, the contrast between JimBob's accounts of his dad and what's written here seem strange to me -- and maybe emblematic of his tendency to gloss everything over public consumption? I don't know .... I;m thinking about it too much, I guess. But the facts about Grandpa Duggar seem kind of a mystery to me.

Reportedly, either yesterday or today. I posted about it over in the Josh and Anna thread. Again, reportedly, they had mulled hiring a very young Kentucky-based PR/crisis management guy who has working with Christian entertainers as one of his specialties. But, again reportedly, he turned them down after what may have been a fairly lengthy conversation period because they didn't meet his criteria for a suitable client. He didn't say exactly why, but he noted that among his criteria are being transparent with him about what's happened, being willing to take suitable lumps for anything you're to blame for, agreeing to pay a reasonable fee, etc.

I think shipping them off to maybe Cleveland would be adequate. There's almost nothing going on but it would still be way more than they're used to and it would provide culture shock but cushioned by the presence of hordes of middle Americans who are almost exactly like their families except with Yankee accents. They could call the show "Duggar Tots in Cleveland." And have Betty White introduce each episode as a grandmotherly figure in a revival of her Golden Girls character, Rose.

I think this is all true, except that I sometimes wonder whether Ben and Jessa actually know that they're unemployed and under-educated.

So true. But I can imagine that it wouldn't seem that way to a state trooper who was a then-sliding-by-uncaught kiddie-porn addict. I think that, consciously or unconsciously, JimBob may have picked up a bit of a I-let-stuff-like-this slide vibe from the guy. That's certainly what he would have been looking for, at any rate.

Of course, it's probably even more damning that Mr.-I'm-27-And-Probably-Desperate-For-a-High-Profile-Job didn't want to take the job. Even he could accurately characterize the disaster at the TTH. So I doubt there's any way that an actual adult crisis manager is going to take this on.