Tag: Josh Duggar

Posted on

Sportswriter Mike Lupica Picks Apart The “Common-Sense” Duggars

Sportwriter Mike Lupica pens an awesome essay for the NY Daily News regarding the twisting, turning tale of Josh Duggar and the media circus surrounding the newly discovered hypocrisy of the family’s “moral superiority:”

Back in April, Josh Duggar, who used to star in a family television series until the world discovered that he used to improperly touch underage girls whether he was related to them or not, was in Washington, D.C., for the National Organization for Marriage’s “March for Marriage.”

Duggar, being a good Duggar, was there to stand up for what Christian conservatives like himself and his mom and his dad think of as “traditional” marriage, and to tell everybody that good Christians like himself have been persecuted because of their faith during the debate about gay marriage in this country.

“America,” Josh Duggar said at the time, God bless him, “was founded on respect, tolerance, and really not discriminating against people based on their religious convictions.”

You would think, just in the interest of full disclosure, and knowing what he knew about himself before the rest of us found out, that he could have added that respect in America also ought to include respect for the rights of children, even when he was sneaking into their bedrooms at night. But as so often happens with people like Josh Duggar, they’ve got their gospel and the rest of us have to make do with ours.

[snip]

The Duggars want this all to be about a sealed juvenile record becoming public, as part of their professional victimization. Right. Now they want privacy.

No, the story here is what their son did, sometimes to sleeping girls, and the fact that they are still — and shamelessly — trying to defend him and themselves. You know what these parents really sounded like with Megyn Kelly as they tried to save their creepy empire?

They sounded like accessories after the fact.

I love that Lupica calls out the “sleight of hand” underway by the Duggars trying to make the “privacy” issue THE issue. Suddenly a family that sought TV fame for ten years wants privacy.

Got it.

Posted on

Duggars: Josh Is “Technically” Not A Pedophile Because He Wasn’t An Adult When He Molested Sisters

Josh Duggar

Last night, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar (of 19 Kids and Counting fame) spoke with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly about the ongoing scandal regarding their son’s admission of sexually molesting several young girls (including his sisters) when he was in his mid-teens.

The Duggars came armed with statements like:

“He said he was just curious about girls and he had gone in and just basically touched them over their clothes while they were sleeping; they didn’t even know he had done it.”

“This was like touching somebody over their clothes. There were a couple instances where he touched them under their clothes. This was not rape or anything like that.”

The parents explained that Josh gave a full account of his actions to an Arkansas State Trooper. Although no charges were filed, the teenager received a “stern” talking-to from the officer.

That officer, Joseph Hutchens, now serving a decades-long prison sentence for child pornography. “We had no idea what that officer was going through,” Jim Bob said.

When asked about robocalls Michelle Duggar recorded opposing transgender rights that suggested transgender folks were just trying to get into girls bathroom for sexual reasons, Jim Bob Duggar told Kelly that his wife “actually said pedophile in that robocall. And actually a pedophile is an adult that preys on children. Joshua was actually 14 and just turned 15 when he did what he did. I think the legal definition is 16 and up for an adult preying on a child. He was a child preying on a child.”

Josh Duggar, himself, has not commented on the scandal since it broke two weeks ago. At the time he issued a short statement saying he had “acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret. I hurt others, including my family and close friends.”

View the full interview with Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar below:

Posted on

Police Report Indicates Josh Duggar Confessed On Three Occasions To Multiple Acts Of Sexual Molestation

Josh Duggar

From In Touch:

Josh Duggar confessed to his father Jim Bob Duggar on THREE separate occasions to multiple acts of sexual molestation against his sisters and a family friend, according to a new police report obtained exclusively by In Touch magazine.

The document also makes clear that Josh was 15 years old when he molested his 5-year-old sister and committed at least SEVEN acts of sexual molestation.

The new report is from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and was obtained by In Touch using the Freedom of Information Act. In Touch broke the story about Josh’s dark past and previously obtained and published a Springdale Police Department report about the molestations, also by using FOIA.

With fewer redactions than the first report, the Washington County Sheriff’s document makes it clear that despite Josh’s chilling confessions the Duggars waited at least 16 months before contacting authorities about the molestations, even though the behavior was continuing and growing worse.

During that period they did not get professional counseling for Josh or his victims.

Legal experts tell In Touch that Jim Bob and Michelle could have faced six years in prison for their inaction, if the statute of limitations had not expired.

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly will interview Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar tonight on her show. It will be interesting to see if Kelly brings up this new information.

Posted on

Duggars To Appear On Fox News To “Share” Their Hearts, Tears And Pain On Josh Duggar Scandal

Entertainment Tonight reports that the Duggars, Jim Bob and Michelle of 19 Kids And Counting fame, will appear on Megyn Kelly’s show on Fox News.

More than a week after they responded on Facebook to the under-age molestation allegations against their oldest son Josh Duggar when he was 14 years old, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar announced that they are giving their first sit-down TV interview to Fox News.

News anchor Megyn Kelly landed the highly sought-after interview with the 19 Kids and Counting parents, which she’ll conduct on Wednesday, June 3, from the family’s Arkansas hometown.

“Next week we will sit down with Megyn Kelly on Fox News to share our hearts with you about the pain that we walked through as a family twelve years ago, the tears we all shed and the forgiveness that was given,” the Duggars wrote in a statement. “We appreciate the outpouring of love and prayers for our family at this time.”

I’m sure we can count on this interview to have hard-hitting questions… (sarcasm intended).

Posted on

“Ex-Gay” Activist Rants On The Josh Duggar Child Molestation Scandal

Christopher Doyle, an “ex-gay” activist write for the Christian Post today defending the ongoing Josh Duggar (of 19 Kids and Counting) child molestation scandal.

In his rant, Doyle compares the media coverage Josh Duggar is getting to how the media treated the arrest last November of one of the co-founders of the Human Rights Campaign, Terry Bean.

“Undoubtedly, the Left needed to dig up dirt against the Duggar family to discredit the family’s conservative, Christian image. But for the liberal media to sensationalize this issue, and some of the articles are just vicious, is simply hypocritical, especially considering they barely mentioned the arrest of Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Co-Founder, Terry Bean, who was accused last November and charged with a felony for sexually abusing a 15 year old boy.

Did you see national headlines for weeks about this scandal of a sitting member of the Board of Directors of HRC? Of course not, because the media wouldn’t dare implicate the world’s largest gay activist organization.

Let’s be honest, with 19 kids and Counting, is it a surprise to any of us that one of the Duggar children would struggle with sexual immorality or addiction?”

Where Doyle fails in his “comparison” is that Bean was an executive at an advocacy organization – NOT a celebrity on a TV reality show that has run for ten years with millions of viewers.

The difference in media interest between a reality celeb (whose fame hinges greatly on an image of “moral superiority”) and an executive are completely understandable.

Of course both’s behaviors were wrong. But the media coverage of a reality celeb caught in a hypocrisy scandal will always trump the interest in an exec.

(h/t JMG)

Posted on

The Duggars Respond To Sexual Abuse Debacle

From Funny Or Die, this parody is actually more funny in that the two actors are pretty much telling the true story of the Josh Duggar scandal.

Clip description: Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, stars of 19 Kids and Counting, finally come forward to tell their side of totally covering up their son Josh’s sexual molestation scandal.

Posted on

Hulu Pulls “19 Kids & Counting”

TMZ is reporting that the online streaming service Hulu has already taken 19 Kids & Counting off their servers.

The popular streaming site was bombarded with messages from users who wanted the show 86’d in the wake of the Josh Duggar molestation scandal.

Hulu responded quickly, saying, “The show page has already been removed, and is no longer hosted on Hulu.”

This puts even more pressure on TLC to make a move. As we reported, we’re told the network is leaning toward cancellation, but at this point, they may not have a choice. Advertisers are fleeing in droves.

Posted on

Fox News Barely Mentioned Duggar Scandal At All

According to Media Matters, Fox News pretty much ignored the Josh Duggar/child molestation allegations that dominated much of last week’s news cycle.

As many now know, last week In Touch magazine reported that in 2006, Jim Bob Duggar – patriarch of TLC’s reality show 19 Kids and Counting – waited over a year before telling police that his son, Josh Duggar, had confessed to molesting several female minors, including his sisters, when he was a teenager.

In the aftermath of the revelations, TLC pulled 19 Kids from its schedule.

From Media Matters:

The revelations drew widespread criticism in the media, with many outlets pointing out the Duggar family’s reputation as a torch-bearer for conservative values and strong involvement in Republican politics and anti-LGBT activism. The revelations look to many like hypocrisy from a family that’s become a political powerhouse in socially conservative circles in recent years by wielding its reality show influence to stump for “family values,” Republican politicians, and the repeal of legal protections for LGBT people.

But while MSNBC and CNN have reportedly heavily on the Duggar scandal, Fox News has largely ignored the story. According to a Media Matters analysis, Fox News spent less than two minutes covering the story between May 21 and May 25, compared to almost an hour of coverage from the other cable news networks.

Bolding is mine.

No big surprise here, although to see the actual disparity is telling. The Duggars are held up as bastions of morality by Fox News, so it’s no wonder they don’t want to highlight the clear hypocrisy in play here.