[CW: Child Sex Abuse] Josh & Anna 31: Charged on 2 LaCounts

[EmCatlyn]

5 hours ago, NancyDrewFan1989 said:

I'm just going to ask this question, but is anyone else questioning the legitimacy of Anna blaming Joe Biden for Josh's arrest news stories. I mean, the story originated from the looks of it The Sun, an unreliable tabloid to me, and now it seems to have blown out of proportion. I'm just asking because the original story that I read didn't seem credible and Anna has yet to comment on the matter. It just seems like the news took a story and ran with it. Yes, I do want to see Josh go down, but I don't believe there being "false news" (there is something I never expected to type) stories are going to help. 

Yes. I think a lot of us are questioning that report.  It is very improbable—essentially unbelievable.

Anna may not be a rocket scientist, but she probably noticed that Biden wasn’t president until January.  The raid where all the porn was “allegedly” found took place last year.  So even if you think Josh is so important that The Godless Left will frame him, you really can’t think Biden was responsible.

It is not impossible that she believes Josh’s allegations that the porn was planted by some Evil Liberals to make him and Godly Christians look bad.  And it is not impossible that she and others think that if Trump were president it might be easier to get the charges dismissed.   

My take on it, however is that the story is largely made up.  This sort of thing happens all the time.  A story is made up, someone picks it up and the next thing you know everyone is taking it seriously. ??‍♀️ 

I also don’t believe the story that Anna blames JB for not doing more/getting Josh out of trouble.  Even if she believes JB can perform miracles, she probably wouldn’t tell even her closest friends that she blames him.  She needs the Duggars too much. (IMO)

[neuroticcat]

Re: laughing inappropriately, it can also be a trauma response. When I finally went to therapy for childhood abuse, my therapist gently pointed out that I always laughed when recounting instances. I’ve since learned that’s pretty typical. Not saying all our examples are trauma responses, but especially if we never learned to navigate negative emotions properly, we can default to laughter.

Also, I believe Michelle talked about grocery trips with tons of little kids in her first book. It involved lots of practice “training” sessions, going back out to the van for discipline, and fudgesicles  offered or withdrawn depending on behavior. 
 

I have six kids - more spread out though, and grocery pick up/delivery is one of the best things to ever happen to my organizational life. Before delivery, Costco was my special personal nightmare - two carts, little kids helping push, others strapped in, exhaustion of shopping and of unloading. Chaos. I cannot imagine the stress of more young children and a super tight budget. I think the “joyful countenance” is coping detachment. 

 

[neuroticcat]

I wish there’d be an expose/documentary. Unfortunately, I still think IBLP and ATI are still SO fringe that it will be hard to get sales/marketing people on board. That was my experience pitching a book loosely based on DPIAT and the SAHD movement several years ago - intriguing story but hard-to-place audience.
 

Sure, Josh Duggar is kind of known but most people have maybe a vague idea of Duggars as a mega family. If even that anymore. If not for his conservative political ties I bet he wouldn’t even really be a blip for mainstream media. 
 

I could see there being maybe a one off kind of tabloidy hour special but for a real look/documentary/tell all, I think it will have to be a former fundie with storytelling chops. 

[Nike]

6 hours ago, NancyDrewFan1989 said:

I am not sure. As I said I keep finding articles about fans speculating about Josiah and Lauren starting to distance themselves. Time will tell with them. Josiah did work with Josh at the car lot and on reddit there are a few rumors that Josh is trying to pin this whole thing on Josiah. Like I said these are rumors. We probably won't know what Josiah and Lauren choose to do for a few 

Pinning this on Josiah may be a rumour but I see Josh and JB all for it. I have the feeling JB has never liked Josiah. For a start he's not the golden firstborn. Also Josiah being upset at the Jubilee announcement and the obvious fact that JB grabbed him roughly and made him cry showed  the fantasy and lie of the happy family delighted to welcome another baby.

Then the were the gay rumours which in JB's eyes are worse than child abuse and child pornography (as long as it involves male on female crime).

Also Josiah has "only" produced one child as opposed to Josh almost 7 so yeah, it may be rumours but I can totally see JB trying to get Josiah to sacrifice himself telling him that unlike Josh, he hasn't got a "troubled past" and the judge will go easy on him, JOY and all that. 

2 minutes ago, Nike said:

Pinning this on Josiah may be a rumour but I see Josh and JB all for it. I have the feeling JB has never liked Josiah. For a start he's not the golden firstborn. Also Josiah being upset at the Jubilee announcement and the obvious fact that JB grabbed him roughly and made him cry showed  the fantasy and lie of the happy family delighted to welcome another baby.

Then the were the gay rumours which in JB's eyes are worse than child abuse and child pornography (as long as it involves male on female crime).

Also Josiah has "only" produced one child as opposed to Josh almost 7 so yeah, it may be rumours but I can totally see JB trying to get Josiah to sacrifice himself telling him that unlike Josh, he hasn't got a "troubled past" and the judge will go easy on him, JOY and all that. 

Edited to add... I wouldn't even be surprised if he blamed Josiah for the Jubilee miscarriage by being unhappy about it. His last chance to have the magic 20

[Jinder Roles]

10 hours ago, kmachete14 said:

There's definitely a lot of interest from a critical standpoint (not the weirdo voyeur intrigue, Christian allowable TV, or  leghumping of the past) on TikTok and Instagram. Exfundie, exvangelical, and exemormon are all trending hashtags and topics. Many people are exposing their childhoods as being cultish, destructive, and scary. Most of them are formatted in sing-songy, meme-ish, or other trending forms as kind of a "humor to cope" scenario. Purity culture, Abeka, summer camps, modest fashion, the Pearls . . .all topics coming out.  I think Netflix/ HBO would have a large audience from the millennials and gen Zs. 

Oh yes, exvies and former-fundie topics just keep trending. 

I can see them doing a documentary series on this...Netflix has already done The Family so they're not completely unfamiliar with the topic. 

[JenniferJuniper]

The "blaming" of Josiah for the material on the computer isn't exactly a rumor.  Josh did tell authorities that other family members had access to the computer in question, and as Josiah apparently worked in the trailer also he'd be the most obvious secondary target.  The problem for Josh is that the forensic investigation puts him at that location at the time the material was downloaded.  And they know Josh used the same password that he used for his banking (let me guess Joshisgreat1988?) to get to that "side" of the computer.  So even if Josiah or someone else also regularly used that computer, the prosecution will likely have little trouble proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Josh who signed on to the side with dark web browser.

 "It wasn't me and other people also used that computer" is really the only defense Josh has, and considering how long it took for him to be arrested, he was probably starting to feel somewhat confident that the feds couldn't specifically pin it on him.  But his own arrogance and stupidity has done him in.

[ContrastingButtons]

On 5/10/2021 at 5:46 PM, FrumperedCat said:

It's the name of the Reber patriarch who's family is housing Josh, bit of a pun.

Because I just can’t let a good thing go... some ideas for the next thread title

LaCountdown to jail

LaCounting On a plea deal

LaCounting On Jim Bob’s financial support 

What’s LaCount got to do, got to do with it?  ? 

It’s the Final LaCountdown ? 

Edited May 22, 2021 by ContrastingButtons
Clarity

[WiseGirl]

20 hours ago, livinginthelight said:

The media is starting to get very critical of the Duggars

Good! About time.

[Glasgowghirl]

2 hours ago, Nike said:

Pinning this on Josiah may be a rumour but I see Josh and JB all for it. I have the feeling JB has never liked Josiah. For a start he's not the golden firstborn. Also Josiah being upset at the Jubilee announcement and the obvious fact that JB grabbed him roughly and made him cry showed  the fantasy and lie of the happy family delighted to welcome another baby.

Then the were the gay rumours which in JB's eyes are worse than child abuse and child pornography (as long as it involves male on female crime).

Also Josiah has "only" produced one child as opposed to Josh almost 7 so yeah, it may be rumours but I can totally see JB trying to get Josiah to sacrifice himself telling him that unlike Josh, he hasn't got a "troubled past" and the judge will go easy on him, JOY and all that. 

Edited to add... I wouldn't even be surprised if he blamed Josiah for the Jubilee miscarriage by being unhappy about it. His last chance to have the magic 20

Sadly I wouldn't put it past Jim Bob to that, Josiah always seemed so smart and inquisitive on the show and Jim Bob likely saw his intelligence as a threat. People on Reddit went back and looked at the video Jessa posted of the Christmas day gathering at TTH and Josh looks as though he is trying to chase Lauren with for a picture, Lauren looks creeped out and later is sitting alone with Josiah and Bella. While I doubt he did anything inappropriate to Lauren, he seems to be the type of person who makes people around him uncomfortable and has no boundaries on personal space. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the Duggar sister in laws felt uneasy around him. 

[Cam]

No, I don’t see Josiah becoming the sacrificial lamb. For one thing, it would be seen as and from then on reported that  the Duggars now have two sons with a sexual criminal history. People would wonder which other Duggar sons have problems or if they all do, rather than Josh being an anomaly. The public would wonder what the older boys were teaching the younger boys. It would cast a worse pall on the family than already exists. And surely there would be a revolt by at least some of the other siblings if they thought Josiah was being forced to take the fall.

If an exposé/documentary is being consodered, the powers that be will wait for the outcome of Josh’s trial/plea so that can be worked in. If he somehow is not convicted, the tell-all would be off the table. They look for salaciousness to sell a story, and unfortunately, with the media, the worse, the better.

Neuroticat, it’d probably be easy enough to find a former fundie with tell-all chops. Probably more that one even.

Buttons, I like “Its the Final LaCountdown”. 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Cam

[Glasgowghirl]

19 minutes ago, Cam said:

No, I don’t see Josiah becoming the sacrificial lamb. For one thing, that would mean the Duggars would then have two sons with a sexual criminal history. People would wonder which other Duggar sons have problems or if they all do, rather than Josh being an anomaly. It would cast a worse pall on the family than already exists. And surely there would be a revolt by at least some of the other siblings if they thought Josiah was being forced to take the fall.

If an exposé/documentary is being consodered, the powers that be will wait for the outcome of Josh’s trial/plea so that can be worked in. If he somehow is not convicted, the tell-all would be off the table. They look for salaciousness to sell a story, and unfortunately, with the media, the worse, the better.

Neuroticat, it’d probably be easy enough to find a former fundie with tell-all chops. Probably more that one even.

Buttons, I like “Its the Final LaCountdown”. 

 

Josiah wouldn't do it and most of the family wouldn't have allowed it, Josh absolutely would have let him take the fall possibly Jim Bob too but the feds knew spent 18 months analysing when it was accessed and worked out it was always when Josh was present. 

In the UK their was the case of missing school girl Shannon Matthews where she had been reported missing and the police took the family computer and a games consoles to analyse them and found CSA images on the computer, the family dynamic was that Karen the mother had 7 children with 6 different dads and a boyfriend, who was originally believed to be the dad of her youngest child, some of the children stayed with her some didn't and her house had a lot of people entering the house, the police got records of the boyfriend, Craig Meechan's work rota and of who else accessed the computer and worked out no images were downloaded when he was at work and that no one else logged in when the images were accessed. Shannon's mother and the boyfriend's uncle were also the ones responsible for her abduction too so pretty horrifying case all round. 

[Idlewild]

@Glasgowghirl I remember that case- apparently Karen Matthews was influenced by the amount of attention received by the parents of Madeleine McCann. I hope her children were placed with people who gave them a chance of some sort of normal life.

I really don’t see Josiah either being responsible or taking the fall and while I don’t particularly like him or Lauren it’s pretty awful that is being touted as a theory. Josiah would do well to learn the value of having an employer who isn’t called ‘Dad’.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

2 hours ago, ContrastingButtons said:

Because I just can’t let a good thing go... some ideas for the next thread title

LaCountdown to jail

LaCounting On a plea deal

LaCounting On Jim Bob’s financial support 

What’s LaCount got to do, got to do with it?  ? 

It’s the Final LaCountdown ? 

I get that a lot of you love puns, but can we not make this a running thing for thread titles?  That happens in some other threads where the joke keeps going in the title long past it being funny or relevant to the topic and using this tertiary guy just because he has an unusual name is more of that IMO.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

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