Possible Lawsuit for Josh

[twinmama]

If there are indeed more victims, I wouldn't be surprised if Josh didn't tell his family about them, in order to avoid getting punished even more or again.

Plus, and this is not to absolve Josh of responsibility for doing what he did, if any other incidents happened after the ones he told his parents about, he already knew they weren't going to get him any meaningful help so why bother telling them.

[Mela99]

I don't think Huckabee regretted anything he said in their defense . . . Has he spoken out again?

[FundieFarmer]

But, logically, any one who looks at just total number as opposed to rate in the population -- just needs to have statistics explained to them. Just common sense will tell you that you can't compare the total number of registered sex offenders and get anything remotely useful. The least populated states have well under a million people, the most populated have over 30 million. That just wouldn't make sense. I think it's the general assumption people are talking rates when they discuss these things, isn't it?

I agree that rates are more accurate. I was reacting to the bolded above when I was explaining that some lists probably do it by how many sex offenders there are TOTAL vs comparatively to population, and that's why people have been finding all different answers every which way. That's why Arkansas would've been super low when in reality, it shouldn't be. And like the article hennypenny shared said, there aren't really accurate sources for much of this info anyway. But I digress.

I'm actually surprised our rate is only 3-ish percent. That's better than I was expecting, what with Florida Man! :lol:

[Palimpsest]

I don't think Huckabee regretted anything he said in their defense . . . Has he spoken out again?

Huckabee is both a blithering idiot and a hypocrite. He is probably trying to play all angles.

He took down the Duggar endorsement of his campaign. The water was a little too hot for him, I think. If his campaign goes anywhere then his support for mishandled child molestation will be used against him.

[Sundaymorning]

Huckabee is both a blithering idiot and a hypocrite. He is probably trying to play all angles.

He took down the Duggar endorsement of his campaign. The water was a little too hot for him, I think. If his campaign goes anywhere then his support for mishandled child molestation will be used against him.

I don't think Huckabee has much to lose at this point (or has he any real chances of winning the Republican nomination?).

He was too deeply in cahoots with the Duggars for years (even decades?) to be able to credibly distance himself from them.

[hennypenny]

Caution Alert!

Hennypenny seems to like to present wild speculation and conspiracy theories as fact. :naughty: Let's not take everything hennypenny says as gospel truth.

What with claims of all of Tonitown gossiping about this, strange statistics about the prevalence of incest in AR, and now Huckabee sneaking around confidential file cabinets and getting first hand knowledge of the case back in 2006. :lol:

Huckabee was indeed Governor of Arkansas in 2006 but he wouldn't necessarily have known about the case, let alone the details of the case back then.

There are protocols. Child abuse files are kept confidential, in locked cabinets when not being updated, and are only shared on a "need to know" basis. The Governor would have to: a) know that the case was under investigation and b) formally request the file giving the reason for doing so. There would have been a massive paper-trail as memos were sent from the corner office to the DHS Director, to the program director for CPS, to the supervisor of the case manager/investigator who would have had the key, to the case manager/investigator who also had the key and would pull the file. Far too risky.

My guess is that Huckabee was given a heads-up by Jim Bob that something bad was about to hit the headlines. He had a knee-jerk Good Old White Boys Club reaction, which he later regretted when he found out how bad the molestation actually was.

Of course he knew. Everyone knew. Just because child abuse files are supposed to be kept confidential doesn't mean it is. Paper trails aren't needed when chatting works just fine.

Really you don't think Huckabee vetted the Duggars before being in cahoots with them all these years. Really? With as loud as the secret was you really think that Huckabee had his head up his ass? Don't you think that one of his advisors would have said in 2008 "hey mike, you know that duggar family that is campaigning for you, I think someone said something about the kid being a molester". He is actually a pretty sharp polititian and while Huckabee is a slimy mofo, he is not stupid. No, he is not one to be surprised by such a well known secret. He knew and he thought, just like the duggars, that it was a) not going to get out or b) people wouldn't be too upset. He road that Duggar train knowing full well what he was doing.

And don't be such a jerk. These are my opinions based on my experiences living in the area, you don't have to read them if you don't like. I've never professed gospel truth. I've even said, hey these are just my thoughts about the subject I don't have any more knowledge than anyone else.

*edited for being way more snarky than I intended

[FundieFarmer]

Really you don't think Huckabee vetted the Duggars before being in cahoots with them all these years. Really? With as loud as the secret was you really think that Huckabee had his head up his ass?

I don't think anybody did a good job of vetting the Duggars. Unless Huckabee, FRC, TLC, et al knew about it and just flat-out ignored it, no, they clearly didn't do a good job of truly checking out this family.

[hennypenny]

I don't think anybody did a good job of vetting the Duggars. Unless Huckabee, FRC, TLC, et al knew about it and just flat-out ignored it, no, they clearly didn't do a good job of truly checking out this family.

This is my opinion but yes, I think they all knew. TLC, FRC, and Huckabee.

[mebeforee]

I don't know about TLC or their method of vetting, but it seems likely that they don't do heavy vetting of their reality show families (or at least they didn't at the time the Duggars started getting press - this was also around the same time J&K+8 were put into the lineup, and that was a trainwreck from the beginning). Someone here in the past also suggested that for the reality specials that were happening around the time the Duggars first were getting attention, less vetting was required than would be for a full series, and that there was a merge of TLC and Discovery that may have crossed some communication wires about whether the Duggars had been given the all-clear or not.

However, when it comes to FRC, I think they almost certainly did know about Josh's past, at least the ones responsible for hiring him. They've never claimed that they didn't know, either, only that it was a difficult time for Josh and his family and that they believed he was making the right choice by resigning and that they supported him in it. I don't want to pin too much on the radio show I listened to after the news came out, but the host made it clear that the higher ups of FRC knew about this. The same dude made no effort whatsoever to condemn Josh and showed no remorse or sympathy for the victims of the molestation, either, his only issue was with the parents and Josh for going forward with a reality program that could potentially give Christianity a bad reputation by association. Since he didn't seem to even understand why people were so upset about the news, I have a hard time believing he would understand the seriousness of implicating the FRC in their knowledge of the molestations. He passed it along as 'everyone knew, but everyone let them get away with this reality show and now people might turn away from Christ because of it', never 'everyone knew and felt bad for the girls but the Duggars were just too powerful~'

So I wouldn't be surprised if Huckabee did know about it, though there seems to be less reason for him to know than for the others involved. No one has tried to claim that they're part of his circles and knew for a fact that he was aware, and just associating with them is not necessarily the same as giving them a platform, so to some extent people wouldn't expect him to be as aware of their pasts as those who might employ them or make profit off of holding them up as an example of Christian righteousness. TLC and the FRC both had a vested financial/political interest in the reputation of the Duggar family that would make necessary for them to know about Josh's past. Huckabee might have political interest in them but he's never been a serious contender in the first place because he's an extremist who openly embraces ignorance because it makes him more comfortable, so... I don't think he necessarily would have pushed past the surface image of the Duggars for any reason.

(Edited to clarify my meaning.)

[Trynn]

Man, I need glasses.... I read that is "they didn't do any heavy petting" of the families.

[DeFrauder]

I don't think anybody did a good job of vetting the Duggars. Unless Huckabee, FRC, TLC, et al knew about it and just flat-out ignored it, no, they clearly didn't do a good job of truly checking out this family.

Maybe TLC DID know. Maybe they are choosing families based on their scandal potential.

Did they really not know that Mama June's BF was in jail for molesting her daughter and that she was still in love with him? I bet she visited him while he was in Jail.

Did they not know that Kate likes to beat her kids?

oh look: I googled and I am not the first to come up with this idea.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/t ... ome-798128

This link claims that TLC gives TMZ their scoops on Mama June:

http://www.realitytvscandals.com/2014/1 ... g-scandal/

[HarleyQuinn]

Maybe TLC DID know. Maybe they are choosing families based on their scandal potential.

Did they really not know that Mama June's BF was in jail for molesting her daughter and that she was still in love with him? I bet she visited him while he was in Jail.

Did they not know that Kate likes to beat her kids?

oh look: I googled and I am not the first to come up with this idea.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/t ... ome-798128

This link claims that TLC gives TMZ their scoops on Mama June:

http://www.realitytvscandals.com/2014/1 ... g-scandal/

Everyone does love a trainwreck after all.

[Nic]

Everyone does love a trainwreck after all.

Interesting idea, but how is TLC making money off the Duggars now? If that theory is correct, talk about a long ticking time bomb, and for what? It looks like they aren't coming back-- maybe in specials which isn't the same as weekly series.

For the premise to work, I'm not sure where TLC monetarily benefits from pulling off top rated shows because of the scandals. Honey Boo Boo GONE. Where does TLC make money from that scandal? It seems like they had to pay out on that one. Kate now has specials, but it's nowhere making the money it did pre-scandal.

As Cuba Gooding Jr said, Show me the money!

[2manyKidzzz]

Kate beats her kids??????

[DGayle]

Is there really more sibling incest there than in other places? I would think that it would be the same everywhere.

The more sexually oppressed a population, the higher the chance of sibling-molestation.

Your comment seems to be saying that people did not go to the authorities or tip off CNN or whatever because so many of the locals had experienced similar trauma.

This could be the reason for some of the people, since acknowledging Josh did wrong would mean having to admit wrong was done to or by themselves.

[DGayle]

Okay, so what I'm getting here is that victims of molestation or sexual assault of any kind might be better served by keeping things private. I know y'all aren't saying this specifically, but perhaps Jill and Jessa were better for having their sexual abuse hidden and treated through whatever channels the parents thought best, is that right? Then they could happily roll along with the reality show money train, allowing them to proceed with their prescribed lives and not even consider themselves victims at all.

Usually the names of victims are private. This is an usual case. If a trial had happened, the report may have been sealed. The reason victims can be better served by anonymity is because of shame they feel, but justice sometimes is about making sure more victims don't happen.

Here we get into a thorny issue - as older women, with collective experience of sexual abuse either to ourselves or many of our friends, are we using young women to right wrongs in our own past?

No. There are other small children he's allowed to be around. The recidivism rate is high. It's about protecting children from a molester who never got any real treatment.

[DGayle]

So it does happen that people look the other way. Although, I do not believe that people were looking the other way in the case of Josh. If that was the case there would not have been any police reports or CPS investigations.

They concealed it until the SOL ran out. Only like-minded people knew. The police report and investigation only happened because of Harpo making a report.

[DGayle]

May I ask what your source for this is? I am finding all sorts of statistics and AR is pretty low on a lot of them.

Incidentally, Arkansas is #4 when you list the states alphabetically.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =127235597

Oregon

Delaware

Vermont

Wisconsin

Arkansas

#5 there. Arkansas is up there.

[DGayle]

I don't think anybody did a good job of vetting the Duggars. Unless Huckabee, FRC, TLC, et al knew about it and just flat-out ignored it, no, they clearly didn't do a good job of truly checking out this family.

Huck shares their values, and they are a well-known name with a lot of followers, probably more than he himself has. He probably knew, and thought the risk of exposure was slight enough to be worth the risk.

The FRC is probably the same way.

TLC probably was blindsided by the confirmation.

[DGayle]

Did they really not know that Mama June's BF was in jail for molesting her daughter and that she was still in love with him? I bet she visited him while he was in Jail.

Did they not know that Kate likes to beat her kids?

Background checks don't show who loves who, and the criminal histories of ex-boyfriends. And a lot of people who beat kids manage to keep it hidden.

oh look: I googled and I am not the first to come up with this idea.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/t ... ome-798128

This link claims that TLC gives TMZ their scoops on Mama June:

http://www.realitytvscandals.com/2014/1 ... g-scandal/

TLC likes to play with the sort of people more likely to have this shit going on, but that doesn't mean they know and look the other way and then start a show. I don't doubt they'd go into denial mode if a scandal breaks open after a show's a hit, but I don't think they search for scandals, or ignore them and go forward. When the Duggars' show started, I think background checks would have been less comprehensive. Plus they started out just as occasional specials.

[DeFrauder]

Interesting idea, but how is TLC making money off the Duggars now? If that theory is correct, talk about a long ticking time bomb, and for what? It looks like they aren't coming back-- maybe in specials which isn't the same as weekly series.

For the premise to work, I'm not sure where TLC monetarily benefits from pulling off top rated shows because of the scandals. Honey Boo Boo GONE. Where does TLC make money from that scandal? It seems like they had to pay out on that one. Kate now has specials, but it's nowhere making the money it did pre-scandal.

As Cuba Gooding Jr said, Show me the money!

Somewhere in those links I posted, I read that TLC still owns the rights for anything June does. Specifically her vlog, but I don't know how much TLC can make off of stuff like that.

[lostfemme]

I don't think TLC has to pick them. The types of people drawn to do faux reality TV probably have squishy ethical standards already, or a strange agenda to promote.

There was another kid on Toddlers and Tiaras who was on fire; the girl would have blown Honey BB out of the water. She had charisma, she was funny as hell, she was a pistol without any prompting, pure TV gold. But her parents pulled her out of pageants because her fan base was becoming oppressive. The parents didn't sign up for a their own show because they didn't want TV cameras in their home. Sane regular people, in other words, who were more committed to their family's health than reality TV.

People who think their unique qualities or agenda needs to be broadcast country wide are automatic assholes, as far as I can tell. There are plenty clambering to be TLC's next hit. TLC doesn't need to search them out.

[DeFrauder]

Kate beats her kids??????

HAHA! According to the gossip rags! Someone stole her super verbose journal and published it. She wrote a lot about spanking the kids and how mad they made her and whatever. I read she likes to spank with wooden spoons. Even some of her close relatives came out publicly to say that she abused the kids.

Here is a telling youtube: .youtube.com/watch?v=l99uaPOmFOI

THe book those kids eventually write will rival "Mommie Dearest".

At least the Duggars do not look like they are going to kill their children as soon as the camera gets turned off.

[DeFrauder]

I don't think TLC has to pick them. The types of people drawn to do faux reality TV probably have squishy ethical standards already, or a strange agenda to promote.

There was another kid on Toddlers and Tiaras who was on fire; the girl would have blown Honey BB out of the water. She had charisma, she was funny as hell, she was a pistol without any prompting, pure TV gold. But her parents pulled her out of pageants because her fan base was becoming oppressive. The parents didn't sign up for a their own show because they didn't want TV cameras in their home. Sane regular people, in other words, who were more committed to their family's health than reality TV.

People who think their unique qualities or agenda needs to be broadcast country wide are automatic assholes, as far as I can tell. There are plenty clambering to be TLC's next hit. TLC doesn't need to search them out.

How financially stable were the family of the other kid? I am not sure how much it has to do with morality as much as it has to do with freak factor. All these TLC shows are somewhat like a circus sideshow. They do not want people that act sane and normal as it is boring.

[DeFrauder]

The more sexually oppressed a population, the higher the chance of sibling-molestation.

This could be the reason for some of the people, since acknowledging Josh did wrong would mean having to admit wrong was done to or by themselves.

Do you have a citation for this claim that incest is related to sexual oppression---I think you might mean repression?

It is my understanding that sexual repression causing sexual misconduct is a "belief" as opposed to scientific fact. Plus, there is all kinds of sexual misconduct among populations that have a high degree of sexual freedom.

I will agree with you that some of the people might have been blocking out former abuse and not wanting to think about it. I am not so sure that I would go as far as to say that the entire region is in denial about being victims of or perpetrators of sexual abuse.

I really think that the idea that certain "backwoods" or "hillbilly" populations have abnormally high rates of incest are just bigotry. I am not calling anyone a bigot. Sometimes we have racist or bigoted ideas, even though we are not racists or bigots. Its just that these racist and bigoted ideas get spread around and people think they are fact.