Churchhoney

I think the fact that the story has about a million angles means that it will be quite a while before time alone drives it off the news radar. It'll have to be eclipsed by some bigger stuff. I can think of very few stories (actually none) that have political and public policy angles (both national and local); religious; culture wars with some of the most current and hottest topics -- LGBT rights and women's issues; entertainment and celebrity; schadenfreude; child welfare; entertainment business; beautiful young women who've had a bunch of People covers; crisis management; dirt from old political campaigns; whether presidential candidates will weigh in; issues of crime and criminal justice and youth offenders and the tradeoffs between punishment and rehabs; hidden stuff to dig up; terrible old ex-cop kiddie-porn convicts to interview; goofball statements and pr gaffes aplenty from the main players, going back years. It's an unbelievable treasure trove of story hooks, both serious and frivolous. People can just keep writing about it and keep reading about it, which will make more people keep writing about it. And that's not good for either the Duggars or TLC, I would imagine.

I hate to even think this, but maybe it's an adoption agency sort of the way Jana is a concert pianist and Sierra is a wedding planner. Just ad hoc and self-declared. I keep thinking of that Ark legislator rehoming scandal. A troubling number of things happen to children in the "informal" system. And even in the informal system, some people are well meaning, I'm sure. Nevertheless...

Does anybody think it's possible that the network is mainly waiting to get an all-clear from the 100 or so lawyers who are currently scrambling among the files full of documents to prepare an ironclad defense against the attacks that will come from an enraged JimBob when they announce cancellation?... Wonder if he might be able to make the case that they've known or should have known about this situation all along, for example? ... I mean, they're probably going to go close to broke over cancellation, so they won't want to be in the position of losing lawsuits or coming under even half-justified attacks from the Duggars in addition to that, if they can possibly avoid it. Can they seriously be thinking of continuing the show? Really?

One more person DimBulb has spent the last few days cussing out.

His true colors do seem to be running strong here, don't they? I don't think it bodes well for crisis managers to decline to take your business.

Duggar crisis-manager candidate reportedly doesn't take the gig: "'It was a no for us to work with them,' Frederick confirmed exclusively to us. 'The needs we need for us to take someone on as a client were not met,' Frederick continued. What needs did he specifically refer to? He informed us that, “I can’t go into specifics, but some examples of what we need from our clients are: a willingness to admit you messed up, being humble about the situation, transparency with us, meeting our retainer fee, willingness to take a proper and just punishment both in the law and or court of public opinion, etc.” 'Due to an inability to garner all we needed from the family- without me providing specific examples- we will not be working with them,' Frederick wrapped with telling us." http://realmrhousewife.com/2015/05/27/exclusive-duggar-family-crisis-manager-not-hired/

It's that third one that's really getting to her, I expect. Especially, since the first two are vile slanders manufactured by heathens. She may not even be cheered up by the knowledge that this escalation of the War on the Duggars is clearly a sign of the imminent Apocalypse.

Sure would. But unfortunately ever single cable channel that I can think of has pretty much shifted over to the lowest common denominator of programming. A few still have some redeeming qualities, but when Animal Planet tries to get us to take a worldwide search for Bigfoot seriously, we know that "quality programming" probably isn't coming back to dominance anywhere any time soon. Remember when "48 Hours" documented some interesting phenomenon over 48 hours? And how quickly it became about 98 percent another let's-wallow-in-this-hideous-domestic-murder! show?

Mega Creep

Raw Story version of the jailhouse interview: Child-porn-loving state trooper tries to CHA by saying that JimBob told him Josh had molested only one girl. Clearly, there's no honor among sex offenders. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/ex-state-trooper-jim-bob-duggar-lied-and-told-me-his-son-had-molested-only-one-girl/ It's going to be hard for TLC or the Duggars to get away from this story for quite a while, I think. It has too many angles.

Do you get paid when you're on a People cover because you've suddenly become infamous? Did they take this photo especially for this event and this cover? A lot of the time their covers of the infamous are paparazzi shots or file shots, aren't they? (talking off the top of my head -- I haven't paid close enough attention at the supermarket checkout) Anyway -- If they did get paid for the cover, then I'm sure JimBob thinks it's a very good thing. Josh with his little mug-shotty insert, I'm not so sure about.

Yeah. Too bad they made that luscious concoction for such a horrible person. Shows you just how devoted they are, I guess.

Well, that sounds like something he'd do!

Yeah, I'd bet their fans really will send them stuff.... for a while. But I'd also bet that'll turn out the way it does for American Idol winners. They sell (or at least they did when people were still buying music) a lot of copies...of the first album. As long as it comes out quickly after the win. And then ... cash register stops ringing. I agree that working outside the home won't be on the radar of the older Duggar girls, at least not for a while. But they were always going to have to support themselves or marry somebody who'd support them at some point anyway. The day just came a little quicker than most expected. Everybody else in the world finds a way to cope with that, so I'm sure they will too. But I hope they don't count on gift cards for more than a year or so, at the most!

In this latest Duggar-related story, Gawker notes that the Bateses are in the same cult. And perhaps in it even deeper than JimBob. Emphasizing the point wIth photos of Bill G at a Bates wedding and his Bates-baked birthday cake.

Whoops. The Bates' Bill-Gothard oreo-studded birthday cake arrives on Gawker. (according to the story, at least, Kelly Bates deleted it from their website but then reinstated it labeled as the "groom cake.") The story of how the Bates family espouses ATI teachings -- just like the Duggars -- accompanies the cake. http://defamer.gawker.com/the-bates-family-is-cable-tvs-new-duggars-and-theyre-ju-1706997724?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gawker%2Ffull+%28Gawker%29

I agree. That's the main reason I want the show to end and think that it's been toxic. Nevertheless, I have a lot of personal experience with family brainwashing (not religiously inspired, however) and family brainwashing that occurs at different periods, and it's quite clear to me -- and to professionals I've talked to -- that you never should imagine that someone can simply walk away from influences that have made up their whole environment from birth. That stuff is in there, and while the level of entrapment varies from person to person, early unconscious influences for many people are going to have a huge effect on both what they do later and on what they WANT to do. It's too easy to say that because some people can walk away or can DESIRE to walk away, that everybody can. For many, there are powerful internal forces arrayed both against doing it and against wanting to do it, seems to me.

I think the barrier is not just that they're brainwashed but that it was brainwashing from birth. When you brainwash a baby, you completely shape the way the kid's very brain forms, from the bottom up. All these kids' neural circuits have been formed in their entirety by Duggardom, and I've seen in my own family that that seems much much much harder to overcome than brainwashing that takes place when somebody's older. Some people do escape, even with the bottom-up brainwiring, of course. But so much of the warping took place when the kids were pre-speech and had absolutely no contrary influences or ability on their own to question it, that they're really hard wired, I think. So while it can happen, I wouldn't ever want to underestimate the difficulty. In The Once and Future King -- I think when writing about Lancelot, the Ill-Made Knight -- T.H. White wrote that "It is so fatally easy to make a small child believe that he is horrible." It's really really easy to shape a baby's whole worldview, including her assessment of herself. And these kids are still in this environment. So anybody who even tries to think a little differently is going to need tremendous strength.

Wonder if Bin's very open anti-Catholic social-media screeds finally convinced Santorum's people to back away. Because they got a fair amount of press and may have aroused ire among his conservative-Catholic base? Oops: I see that GEML has already noted this above. Missed that post. Sorry. Had the Duggars themselves ever spoken or written anti-Catholic sentiments publicly before Bin? If they did, I didn't notice it. Although it's certainly clear from the number of Catholic countries that they and their buddies regularly attempt to convert to Christianity. (Or just vacation in, depending on how you look at it. I notice there's not a lot of fundie evangelizing that goes on in very Catholic Poland, for example -- no beaches)

Yes. And maybe the most infuriating thing is that the whole phenomenon came from Gothard -- one guy who apparently couldn't get enough girls in his youth, so he invented a whole philosophy and vocabulary that would lead thousands of idiots like J and M to view walking-around-while-having-visible-female-skin as the worst of sins. .... And he was so successful enlisting other fearful, sexually frustrated, misogynistic control freaks into his defrauding cause that he became a power figure who in the end got lots of girls, all pretty teenagers even as he got older and uglier and more of a jerk. And since he has a foot fetish he engineered the philosophy so that the otherwise covered up girls and women and long-locked teenagers would still walk around winter and summer wiggling their bare toes for his delectation. And deluded idiots like Michelle would defend that practice because "Feet aren't sexual!"

I agree. As I said, I only blame the show for some of that! Mostly it's Gothard and the Duggar parents. But I kind of think that, without the show, there's a better chance -- not necessarily a big chance but at least a small one -- that some of the kids would begin to see the light somewhat earlier. If you had 19 kids, all living without the show income and perks, without the distractions of the show, without the enhanced need to be the perfect unified family for the sake of the show and the apparent proof that you ARE a perfect family because you're on the show, I think there would be a better chance that some teenagers and young-20-somethings would notice the practical difficulties of that life and leave or take some steps to put themselves in a better position for their futures. Not that it would be easy -- but people do make their own decisions and come to their own conclusions and try to get schooling and external jobs and so on, even in these ginormous cult families sometimes. But it hasn't happened here even once, despite there being --what, eight? --kids age 18 and over by now.. And my guess is that the show may be a factor in why it hasn't happened even once so far.

Yes, you're right about that. But honestly I blame the show for some of that -- everybody got lulled into thinking that they didn't really need to prepare for the future; everybody was too busy filming to prepare for the many coming decades in which they wouldn't have TLC and People money funding them (and those decades were not going to be TOO far away, even if this mess had never happened or never come to light -- no show lasts forever). Plus, if the show stays on -- Do we really think that NOW they'll decide -- Uh-oh! We have to devote our family to getting educations, training and work experience so everybody can cope in the future? Not a chance, in my opinion -- IF the show stays on the air. ..... Given the way things have gone so far, I firmly believe that the only thing that'll shake them up and give them the needed push toward realistic planning for future decades is for the show to end, so that everybody sees the need for it. At this point, Boob surely has enough money to tide everybody over as they readjust. .... Later, after he's given (or lent, but for how long, Ben and Jessa?) six married kids houses, who knows? And one snippet of the show that I DID watch recently showed Josiah and one of the Howlers (don't remember which) only half joking that their dad could give them all houses, since "he's in real estate." And I think we all know that a $3.5 million net worth isn't going to provide 19 houses plus everything else they need -- such as retirement funding for JimBob and Michelle, etc. But if I were a teenager in their situation, I might just begin to expect that, too. Yes, in some ways it will be painful when it ends. But going on and on with your delusions is never a good idea either. More important than the money, though, to me, is the falsity you end up having to embrace as a tv family. And I especially think that's dangerous for people in Josh's situation and in the older girls' situation.

I do get the rest of what you're saying, but I think this argument really needs closer examination. Nobody should really be counting on reality tv to be their futures and their incomes. And the longer a bunch of children, teens and 20-somethings imagine that this is their future -- with the freebie Macbooks and so on -- the harder it's going to be for them to adjust to the real world that they all WILL have to deal with eventually, seems to me. Plus, I just don't see how being on tv and having to "act" your real life -- with retakes and pressure to smile and be amusing in talking-head segments and so on -- has ever been good for abuse victims, recovering abusers or children of any sort. Many people have long wondered why Jana seems spiritless, why Joy, Jinger and Hannie have seemed increasingly bummed (and, yes, I do read too much about this show -- I know all this and have virtually never actually watched it -- sheesh) -- and I'd argue that maybe it's this. EVen in the best of circumstances, the "life" you live as a reality tv person is going to be phony. And in this case, there's clearly a lot of pressure -- well meaning or otherwise -- from their parents to live up to that family brand. That just can't be good for those kids. Especially for the older girls and Josh, who are most affected by this situation and who probably would benefit from living a more authentic and honest life rather than having to put on a show for years and years, whether they all realize that or not.

I recently talked to several crisis managers who told me that the worst thing about their industry is how many people completely ignore their instructions (the ones you just described) the minute the crisis-management consultants leave the premises, even after they've paid them a bunch of money. Seems as if people are often hoping that they'll get quite different advice -- or a magic wand to make the whole thing go poof. One guy told me that he often asks people to list the kinds of crises their organizations might get hit with, and the one that almost never makes the list is -- A crisis we caused ourselves by being idiots or jerks. Who wants to bet that somehow JImBoob figured that a Christian crisis-management consultant would know how to turn Jesus into the magic wand and can't even now get his mind around the fact that this is a Duggar-caused crisis?

Wonder whether all of this will make any of the late-arriving Gothardites among the Duggar connection (which I kind of think the Jacksons must be?) rethink the many promises and guarantees that have flowed out of ATI. And if they were to reevaluate, I wonder how that would affect the kids' relationship (what with Josiah's long history in ALERT -- which could be the mark of a major Gothard Kool-Aid guzzler ... or not). I wouldn't expect it to change the mind of longtime members, but it does look like some of the Duggar hangers-on may be new arrivals to the lifestyle and belief system, including Marjorie's family.