Behind the Bastards - Part Two: The Cult Behind Josh Duggar
Aired: 2021-08-05
Duration: 01:28:41


=== Roald Dahl's Secret Spy Life (01:54) ===

[00:00:00]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[00:00:02]  Guaranteed human.
[00:00:04]  You know the famous author Roll Dahl.
[00:00:06]  He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG.
[00:00:09]  But did you know he was a spy?
[00:00:11]  Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
[00:00:18]  All episodes are out now.
[00:00:19]  Was this before he wrote his stories?
[00:00:21]  It must have been.
[00:00:22]  What?
[00:00:23]  Okay, I don't think that's true.
[00:00:24]  I'm telling you, I was a spy.
[00:00:26]  Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
[00:00:29]  Now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:00:34]  Readers, Katie's finalists, publicists.
[00:00:36]  We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys.
[00:00:39]  We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode.
[00:00:43]  They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. video on Demand This Guide's 2 a.m.
[00:00:47]  2 a.m.
[00:00:48]  Whatever time it is.
[00:00:48]  Lizzie McGuire and I'm watching.
[00:00:51]  It was like a first closet moment for me where I was like, you're like, I don't feel like she's hot like the rest of them.
[00:00:56]  No, no, no.
[00:00:57]  I was like, she's beautiful.
[00:00:58]  I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are.
[00:01:01]  I'm not like...
[00:01:03]  Listen to Las Culturalistas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:01:13]  Hello, gorgeous.
[00:01:14]  It's Lala Kent, host of Untraditional Ilala.
[00:01:17]  My days of filling up Cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley.
[00:01:21]  Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditional Ila, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate.
[00:01:31]  It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's untraditionally Lala.
[00:01:34]  Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:01:43]  I actually drop better when I'm high.
[00:01:45]  It heightens my senses, calms me down.
[00:01:49]  If anything, I'm more careful.
[00:01:51]  Honestly, it just helps me focus.

=== Protecting Children from Molesters (14:54) ===

[00:01:54]  That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself.
[00:01:58]  And now he's in prison.
[00:02:00]  You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different.
[00:02:06]  So if you're high, just don't drive.
[00:02:10]  Brought to you by Nitza and the Ad Council.
[00:02:15]  What?
[00:02:16]  Blanket training my baby?
[00:02:18]  No, that's a horrible way to introduce a show.
[00:02:21]  Thank God Sophie's not here.
[00:02:22]  We have been talking, this is Behind the Bastards podcast, Bad People, Part 2, Duggar episodes, about blanket training my cats, but it turns out cats are incapable of learning things.
[00:02:34]  That would have been a great slogan for God Hard and ATI would have been training your babies.
[00:02:40]  We have the blanket answers.
[00:02:42]  We have the blanket answers.
[00:02:44]  Yeah, the blanket abusive.
[00:02:47]  I don't know.
[00:02:48]  There's not great jokes to tell about.
[00:02:49]  There's a profoundly abusive cult.
[00:02:55]  Sean, back again to finish our two-parter on the Duggars and hopefully finish talking shit about Ted Wheeler, who's who's a bad mayor and who got tear gassed for the fucking likes.
[00:03:14]  Fucking baby.
[00:03:15]  He was a real baby about it.
[00:03:16]  Like that's the thing.
[00:03:18]  Like after having all of us tear gassed to Helen back for weeks, thousands of people, his cops gassed.
[00:03:24]  As soon as it becomes a national anti-Trump thing, the motherfucker goes out to get like tear gassed once, like a big baby and say like, oh, this shouldn't be done.
[00:03:32]  And then goes right back to tear gassing people.
[00:03:34]  His cops never stopped gassing people.
[00:03:36]  I just.
[00:03:37]  Anyway, Ted Wheeler sucks.
[00:03:39]  Go to Total Recall PDX to help recall him.
[00:03:44]  And if anyone wants to start a band that makes fun of Ted Wheeler, here's a good name for you.
[00:03:49]  Tears for Feargast.
[00:03:50]  Oh, that's a good one.
[00:03:51]  That's a good one.
[00:03:52]  I would have gone with...
[00:03:54]  Shit.
[00:03:55]  I don't actually have one in the chamber.
[00:03:57]  Wheeler in the sky.
[00:03:58]  Damn it.
[00:03:59]  Okay.
[00:03:59]  You're ahead of me on this one.
[00:04:03]  Guns and Teds is?
[00:04:05]  No, that's terrible.
[00:04:06]  Guns and Rose Cities.
[00:04:07]  God damn it.
[00:04:08]  Okay, well, all right.
[00:04:10]  I'm gonna have guns and rose cities.
[00:04:11]  Yeah, I'm gonna give up trying to win this one.
[00:04:16]  So, Sean, are you ready to learn a little bit more about Josh Duggar?
[00:04:20]  Oh, yeah, I can still feel.
[00:04:22]  Yeah, we had a...
[00:04:25]  We'll deal with that little problem.
[00:04:27]  So in 2003, Josh Duggar returned home from the treatment program run by ATI that he'd been sent to because he molested two of his sisters.
[00:04:36]  Now, it was at this point that his father, Jim Bob, decided to involve law enforcement, likely as a matter of self-protection.
[00:04:43]  If this ever came out in the future, he'd want to be able to say that he went to the cops when it first started.
[00:04:47]  The cop they picked was a state trooper who was a friend of the Duggar family.
[00:04:52]  Joshua confessed, and the trooper presumably told him, don't do it again.
[00:04:56]  Now, there's a federal law that says that people who are like cops and teachers are what are called mandatory reporters.
[00:05:05]  This means that if a child or anyone really reports child abuse to you, you have to report it to somebody.
[00:05:11]  Like somebody else in, you have to escalate it up, basically.
[00:05:14]  Like you can't just be like, yeah, it sounds fucked up.
[00:05:18]  Like it's you're committing a crime if you don't then go on to report it.
[00:05:21]  This is the case for teachers.
[00:05:22]  It's the case.
[00:05:23]  Is it for health care professionals?
[00:05:24]  I was going to say, it's like to even go like to see like how basic of a protect the children thing is.
[00:05:30]  When we get an Amber alert in the hospital, everyone that's an employee drops what they're doing and goes to doorways to make sure like if someone, you know, if like someone's trying to escape, like maybe the kid wander off, maybe someone like tried to steal a baby.
[00:05:45]  That happens.
[00:05:47]  You, yeah, you, I mean, there's, there's new stories that come up every now and then.
[00:05:52]  Like someone gets like either grief or they're having mental issues.
[00:05:54]  And so they go and they try to get a baby.
[00:05:56]  Right.
[00:05:57]  Yeah.
[00:05:58]  So, but basically everyone has to drop what they're doing and go by like a public doorway, check everyone that goes by.
[00:06:04]  Like you got a backpack, you got to bet, you got to make sure.
[00:06:06]  Like, and that, again, that's, that's, we're not working directly.
[00:06:11]  We don't work directly with kids or not everyone is.
[00:06:13]  Like I don't from doing like cleaning and stuff like that.
[00:06:16]  But that's like everyone stop.
[00:06:18]  There's, there's a child safety thing going on.
[00:06:21]  Yeah.
[00:06:21]  I mean, that makes, yeah.
[00:06:22]  So this is, again, as you're saying, like, this is a really basic and very like, you are supposed to, if you are a mandatory reporter, take this very seriously.
[00:06:30]  You can go to fucking prison if you don't take it seriously.
[00:06:33]  It's a big deal.
[00:06:35]  The state trooper did not report this to anybody.
[00:06:38]  Didn't tell a soul.
[00:06:40]  And the decision of a lawman to break the law in order to protect a child molester may seem confusing if you don't know much about the cop in question.
[00:06:48]  Because this is supposed to be one of those things.
[00:06:51]  Even all of my issues with the police, as a general rule, most people are like, well, but child molesters, like we can all agree, fuck those people, right?
[00:07:00]  Like it's supposed to be a thing that even very wildly opposed people are like, well, yeah, like we're all on the same page about this issue, right?
[00:07:10]  Not in this case.
[00:07:11]  So he's more of a mentor in this case.
[00:07:13]  He's more of a mentor in this case.
[00:07:16]  In 2007, four years after his conversation with Josh Duggar, officer Joseph Hutchins pled guilty to eight felony counts of, quote, possessing visual or print medium depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child.
[00:07:31]  He was sentenced to five years in prison and served three.
[00:07:34]  Hutchins was released from prison on good behavior in 2010.
[00:07:38]  And then while still on parole, he was arrested again and charged with four counts of distribution, possession, or viewing of sexually explicit material involving a child.
[00:07:47]  He was re-sentenced to 56 years in prison, where he is now and will probably die because even cop privilege has its limits.
[00:07:53]  They did try to let him out after three years, but he...
[00:07:56]  Well, I mean, that's just cruel.
[00:07:58]  56, you know, one more, one more year, could have gotten that Heinz deal.
[00:08:01]  Could have gotten that sponsorship.
[00:08:04]  Heinz is very big in sponsoring child molesters.
[00:08:08]  I don't really.
[00:08:08]  You got a 57 in front of anything.
[00:08:10]  Heinz will throw some money.
[00:08:13]  It's gotten them in trouble a lot.
[00:08:15]  It's, you know.
[00:08:16]  They should have rethought that idea.
[00:08:19]  In hindsight.
[00:08:22]  So from 2005 on, the Duggars grew increasingly popular and relevant.
[00:08:27]  The wild success of their and counting, because they changed the name, you know, you'll have more kids is like, whatever, and counting shows.
[00:08:33]  We're just going to call it and counting.
[00:08:35]  But lost counting.
[00:08:36]  Yeah, this made them the single most popular public ministry for the Quiverful movement.
[00:08:42]  They were never identified as being part of such a movement on air, of course.
[00:08:47]  Josh Duggar continued to be a major part of the show because, again, nobody knew that he'd done this, right?
[00:08:53]  Outside of this small circle.
[00:08:55]  His marriage was the focus of a special very Duggar wedding episode.
[00:08:59]  The births of his three children were also covered.
[00:09:01]  Now, while the family was successful in covering up Josh's crimes, the crimes themselves continued.
[00:09:07]  He molested at least three other minors, a total of five victims, during the early aughts.
[00:09:13]  And four of them were his sisters.
[00:09:16]  One of them was a baby sister.
[00:09:17]  We'll talk more about this, was a babysitter.
[00:09:18]  We'll talk more about this later.
[00:09:20]  But he has at least five child victims.
[00:09:23]  While the truth about Josh did not become widely known for years, there was, however, evidence of it if you knew where to look.
[00:09:29]  In 2006, Oprah Winfrey booked Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar on her show.
[00:09:34]  The whole family was flown to Chicago, taken out for expensive meals, and put up in hotels at Oprah's expense.
[00:09:39]  This is the way Oprah does.
[00:09:40]  Obviously, that's the way the show works.
[00:09:41]  The episode never aired.
[00:09:43]  And as best as I can determine, it seems that someone close to the family found out Josh's secret.
[00:09:48]  There are claims, and it's kind of weird here.
[00:09:50]  I don't think we know exactly what happens, but like some family member like wrote or someone close to the family wrote about what had happened on a note and like put it in a book.
[00:09:57]  And someone else who was, I think, an associate found the book, a woman in her 60s.
[00:10:02]  This person wrote a letter to Oprah saying like, hey, don't have these people on your show.
[00:10:09]  They're kids of child molester who are covering this.
[00:10:12]  Yes, I love the John of God episode.
[00:10:14]  Yes, I love it.
[00:10:15]  You know, it's one of those things.
[00:10:18]  99.9% of the time when Oprah comes up on one of these shows, we're being very negative towards her fact-checking.
[00:10:25]  This is not that kind of story.
[00:10:27]  Oprah does exactly the right thing in this situation, which is not a thing that happens often, but I will give credit where it's due here.
[00:10:34]  They handle it right.
[00:10:36]  So because obviously Oprah has an effectively infinite pile of money, she set a team of people into investigating the manner.
[00:10:42]  And again, a fairly rare example of journalistic integrity for the Oprah Winfrey show.
[00:10:47]  They seem to have found some comments online repeating the allegations.
[00:10:50]  Whatever they dug up concerned Oprah enough that she, it seems that she reported them to the Arkansas State Police Child Protection Agency and the Washington County Child Protection Agency.
[00:11:00]  She didn't just, the episodes never aired.
[00:11:02]  She didn't just cancel the episodes, but it seems that she reported the Duggars, which is the right thing to do.
[00:11:10]  That's always like the heartbreaking thing for me with Oprah.
[00:11:12]  It's like she's the stand-in for the gullibility of America.
[00:11:16]  I just want it to be true.
[00:11:17]  This sounds so good.
[00:11:18]  I want to feel good about it.
[00:11:20]  And then it just stuff spins out or she's like, oh, or she follows through.
[00:11:25]  It's like.
[00:11:25]  She did this time.
[00:11:26]  And again, she's helped enable molesters and other situations, unfortunately.
[00:11:34]  But this time she did everything right.
[00:11:36]  As far as I can tell, as far as we know, she did everything right.
[00:11:39]  That didn't matter as much as it should have, perhaps.
[00:11:42]  We can argue maybe there was more that could have, but she took them off her show and she reported them to law enforcement, as far as we can tell.
[00:11:50]  The official police report that we've quoted from was filed in December of 2006.
[00:11:54]  So it does seem likely that she reported them and there was an official police report, right?
[00:12:00]  Now, if so, if this is how it actually went, because all of this is a little murky, Oprah gets kudos for being more critical of the Duggars image than any other mainstream media organ.
[00:12:09]  Nobody else really devoted that much of a critical eye to them.
[00:12:14]  And again, I'm going to be a fair man here.
[00:12:17]  Now, in more recent years, once all this blew up, Gawker did a deep dive to see what allegations they could find online about Josh Duggar that might have been floating around when the Duggars were supposed to be on Oprah.
[00:12:29]  The earliest comment they found seems to have come from a commenter on a 2005 blog called, and the commenter was the name she used was Concerned Mom.
[00:12:39]  And this blog alleges misconduct by the anonymous son of a political man at her church.
[00:12:45]  Quote: A few years ago, the men of the church were meeting after church to discuss my friend's teenage daughter's apparel.
[00:12:51]  They felt like their blouses were too tight and they should bind their chests up more.
[00:12:54]  Go figure.
[00:12:55]  At the same time, the son of one of these political men was touching one of my friend's teenage daughters in a sexual way as she slept.
[00:13:02]  This was found out and apologies were made, although the boy was tempted by the girl's tight blouse.
[00:13:06]  The boy was sent to one of the training centers to be punished.
[00:13:09]  My friends did not return to the home church for quite some time after this.
[00:13:13]  At the same time, the boy mentioned earlier was betrothed to a girl in the group.
[00:13:17]  Both were 14 at the time.
[00:13:19]  The betrothal was broken up by the boy's actions.
[00:13:21]  Just this last year, the family of the young man mentioned before was highlighted on the Discovery Channel.
[00:13:26]  At the time, they had 14 children and were about to have another, and the mom was receiving a Mother of the Year award from our governor.
[00:13:32]  Since that time, the same boy was betrothed again to the same girl.
[00:13:35]  He was working very hard on a campaign for U.S. Senate for the girl's father.
[00:13:39]  The father lost the campaign.
[00:13:41]  He immediately began looking for sin in the camp, as that could be the only explanation for the loss.
[00:13:46]  He found out that the young man betrothed to his daughter had committed sexual sins while on the campaign trail.
[00:13:52]  The young man, now 16, was made to stand in front of the church and confess his sin.
[00:13:57]  So, again, she doesn't name the Duggars, but it's the only family with a discovery show.
[00:14:02]  And there was another member of the church, I think Jim Holt was his name, who was running for office and Josh because they wanted Josh to in politics, worked on the campaign.
[00:14:11]  The campaign didn't go well, and they blamed it on the fact that everyone knew he was a fucking molester.
[00:14:16]  And it only became a problem when another man in the church didn't win elections.
[00:14:21]  Because then they had to start looking for, we'll talk about more the scriptural justifications for this, but basically there was sin in the camp, and that's when it became an actual problem for them that he was molesting kids.
[00:14:33]  Typical guy getting mad at someone else when he couldn't get his election up.
[00:14:37]  Am I right?
[00:14:40]  That was a rough one.
[00:14:41]  I'm not going to lie to you, Shel.
[00:14:43]  That was a rough one.
[00:14:45]  Now, in order to understand why this fact, after, again, molesting kids, not a big punishment.
[00:14:54]  Sinning in a way that lost a political election to another prominent man in the church, that got him a significant punishment.
[00:15:01]  And in order to understand why there's that kind of discrepancy, why molesting kids does not earn you much of a punishment in this community, you have to understand what the Institute for Basic Life Principles calls the umbrella of protection.
[00:15:14]  I'm going to quote from their own stupid website here: God-given authorities can be considered umbrellas of protection.
[00:15:20]  By honoring and submitting to authorities, you will receive the privileges of their protection, direction, and accountability.
[00:15:26]  If you resist their instructions and move out from their jurisdictional care, you forfeit your place under their protection and face life's challenges and temptations on your own.
[00:15:34]  The Institute goes on to state: Under the overarching umbrella of his protection, God has established significant jurisdictional structures: family, husbands, and parents, government leaders, church leaders, elders, and other believers, and employers.
[00:15:49]  Which there's a lot to talk about.
[00:15:50]  Like, what that's not great.
[00:15:53]  So the way this works in practice is that if anything goes wrong in a child's life or with someone's wife, it is because they were not properly submitting to authority and thus lost godly protection, the protection of God's umbrella.
[00:16:07]  Likewise, the reason this other member of the church's political campaign failed isn't that he was a bad candidate.
[00:16:14]  It was that Josh Duggar sinned and opened up a hole in the umbrella that let Satan in, basically.
[00:16:22]  That's the idea here.
[00:16:23]  This, not repeatedly molesting, well, this was caused by him molesting his sisters, but the fact that it damaged the umbrella of protection is why he got punished, right?
[00:16:34]  That's what was actually bad about this.
[00:16:36]  Now, the reason for this involves a few different factors.
[00:16:40]  One, as I elaborated on earlier, is that men's sexual misdeeds are seen as fundamentally rooted in the behavior of the women they assault or molest.

=== The Broken Betrothal Story (06:05) ===

[00:16:48]  That's pretty fucked up, but the other factor here is arguably even worse.
[00:16:52]  Under the fundamentalist doctrine the Duggars follow, the gospel of Bill Gothard, all sexuality outside of procreative marital sex is a sin.
[00:17:01]  Again, Quiverful kids aren't allowed to date.
[00:17:03]  They engage in something called courtship, which has very frustrating rules.
[00:17:06]  And under which, if you're like holding hands before marriage, that is not okay.
[00:17:11]  That is a serious sin.
[00:17:13]  And in fact, is a sin on the same level as what Josh Duggar did to his siblings.
[00:17:20]  Now, every interaction prior to marriage between male and female must be carefully chaperoned.
[00:17:27]  Healthy exploration is not seen as something that exists.
[00:17:30]  And when all sex and even like handholding is equally taboo, when masturbation is the same as child molestation, there's no reason to punish a young man who molests his sisters more than a young man who finds a playboy in the woods because the sin is the same, which is not great.
[00:17:48]  Not great.
[00:17:48]  I mean, it's kind of like how when you attach these like draconian penalties to possession of large amounts of illegal drugs, there are people who'll be like, well, why shouldn't I just kill the cop or something who's trying to arrest me?
[00:18:02]  Like it's a life in prison either way.
[00:18:04]  I might as well try to get away, you know?
[00:18:06]  Like it's this, if you treat, I don't know, it's not great.
[00:18:10]  It doesn't work well ever when you do this.
[00:18:13]  Well, and in the specific way and what you've seen from the episodes is it creates an extremes on two ends where one, because everything is under the umbrella of sin, under just like this disgeneral sin outside of marriage, things that are super fucked up, like molestation, get the severity gets not treated seriously.
[00:18:38]  Yeah.
[00:18:39]  And the stuff like holding hands gets treated way too seriously.
[00:18:44]  And so then you get those kind of extremes where you have Josh Duggar molesting people and possibly that guy in Atlanta shooting up a spa.
[00:18:56]  It comes from that saying it's one of those like kind of...
[00:19:00]  A total lack of proportion.
[00:19:02]  Total lack of proportion.
[00:19:03]  It's like throwing a bouncy ball into an empty room.
[00:19:05]  You don't know where it's going to end up getting.
[00:19:07]  Yeah, that's exactly right.
[00:19:09]  Now, repeated studies have found that abstinence-only approaches to sex education, and again, these are generally way less restrictive than Quiverful Sex Ed.
[00:19:19]  Just abstinence-only is not the same as Quiverful Sex Ed.
[00:19:22]  But repeated studies have found that this attitude towards sex, just abstinence-only programs, do not decrease sexual behaviors among kids, but do cause kids to engage in riskier sex because they lack the education to do it safely.
[00:19:35]  It also robs kids of the vocabulary they need to adequately explain when something unacceptable has happened or been done to them.
[00:19:42]  In her book, A Love That Multiplies, Michelle Duggar gives a story that her husband tells to their kids to explain the importance of purity.
[00:19:49]  From this, we can get an idea of the kind of sex ed that the Duggar kids, both perpetrator Josh and his victims, benefited from.
[00:19:57]  And this is Michelle Duggar's writing.
[00:19:59]  So buckle in for some pros.
[00:20:03]  Imagine that your parents are going to surprise you and give you a brand new bike for Christmas.
[00:20:07]  Two weeks before Christmas, they buy your bike and hide it in the storage shed in the backyard.
[00:20:11]  But then the boy next door sneaks into the shed and borrows your new bike.
[00:20:14]  He stunt rides it up and down the back alley.
[00:20:17]  On Christmas morning, your parents lead you out to the shed to reveal the special gift they bought for you.
[00:20:21]  And as they open the door and say, surprise, they're just as surprised as you are.
[00:20:25]  You're all shocked to see that the bike looks like it's been thrown off a cliff.
[00:20:28]  The front fender is missing and the front tire is warped so it rubs on the frame.
[00:20:31]  It's dirty.
[00:20:32]  The paint is all scratched and chipped and the seat has a big rip in it.
[00:20:35]  It looks worse than something you would have bought at a garage sale.
[00:20:38]  I'm sure you would still be grateful for the bike and you would have fun riding it, but it won't be in the condition your parents had hoped and dreamed it would be when you received it.
[00:20:46]  You would miss out on the a lot of the enjoyment they meant for you to have.
[00:20:49]  In the same way, we don't want any boy or girl to come and steal your purity.
[00:20:55]  Pros, more like amateurs, am I right?
[00:20:59]  Yeah, I mean, because everyone will be an amateur because you don't know anything when you're married.
[00:21:03]  But also.
[00:21:03]  Also, a little bit of shaming there.
[00:21:05]  I mean, some people are into rip seats.
[00:21:06]  I mean, come on.
[00:21:07]  Somebody people are into rip seats.
[00:21:08]  Some people like mud on the tires.
[00:21:11]  Some people like don't need a fender.
[00:21:13]  It's also, you know, not great.
[00:21:17]  Number one, one of the weird things about this is that for a community that like attacks the secular world as being like obsessed with sex and sexuality, they're completely reducing marriage to just fucking, to just virginity, right?
[00:21:33]  As opposed to just like, well, people tend to meet and get married and like life has already happened to them and you kind of take the person as they are and everything that's happened to them.
[00:21:42]  And that's part of if you're in love with someone, what you love about them is the experiences they've had and the person it's made them.
[00:21:48]  This is saying like, no, if they're used at all, they're not as good.
[00:21:51]  Well, and it's a warping of the experience of love because the, you know, the idea and the life experience and the joy of love is that the more you give, the more you have.
[00:22:03]  And this is saying that, no, your love is a finite thing and that any sort of usage of it takes away from it.
[00:22:08]  Like it's like Donald Trump and his, I don't exercise because my body's a battery.
[00:22:13]  It's going to run out.
[00:22:14]  He lives like this, yeah.
[00:22:16]  But with love.
[00:22:17]  But with love.
[00:22:17]  And it's, yeah, I mean, there's a lot that's wrong with it, including the idea that like, well, it's actually like if your parents got you a bike, but by the time it was in the shed, because it got rode so much, other kids came in and upgraded the bike.
[00:22:33]  And it was a much better bike because people had realized, oh, you actually need these new wheels to like do a better job of going up these hills.
[00:22:39]  And I don't know.
[00:22:39]  We could, I don't want to continue making bike as fucking metaphors, but you could.
[00:22:44]  Well, you know, I mean, it's something that's going to happen.
[00:22:46]  It's very cyclical.
[00:22:48]  Yeah.
[00:22:50]  Sean, you know what else is cyclical?

=== Love as a Finite Resource (05:16) ===

[00:22:54]  Ooh.
[00:22:55]  The rising of the seventh moon on the plains of a distant planet where.
[00:23:02]  Presumably, yeah.
[00:23:04]  I mean, unless it's like an elliptical lore, but I guess, yeah.
[00:23:07]  I mean, that's kind of.
[00:23:08]  But I was going to say, what's cyclical is capitalism because you start with money and money buys products and products create more money and then you get more money to buy more products.
[00:23:21]  It's a perfect circle.
[00:23:22]  Yeah.
[00:23:22]  Perfect circle, Sean.
[00:23:23]  I mean, the products are finite.
[00:23:24]  I mean, once you use the product once, I mean, it's not what your parents wanted for you.
[00:23:28]  So you gotta go get a true one.
[00:23:30]  So don't buy the bikes that are advertised on our show if someone's had sex with them, I think is the conclusion we're coming here.
[00:23:37]  I was gonna say, or just like get like, you know, like how you get those one-use like dispense packs, but just get with bikes.
[00:23:44]  Yeah, get like a 12-pack of bikes from Costco.
[00:23:46]  Yeah, you don't want to ride a bike twice.
[00:23:48]  So yeah, hopefully Costco's going to come in here with your parents are sitting at home going, oh God, I hope he doesn't get a bike that's already been ridden.
[00:23:58]  Someone else's ass on my boy's bike.
[00:24:00]  What have I done?
[00:24:01]  All right.
[00:24:02]  Here's products.
[00:24:07]  On a recent episode of the podcast Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budginista Alicia to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
[00:24:17]  What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
[00:24:24]  We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never ever taught.
[00:24:33]  Financial education is not always about like, I'm going to get rich.
[00:24:37]  That's great.
[00:24:38]  It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family.
[00:24:48]  If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
[00:24:54]  Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:25:05]  I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him.
[00:25:09]  Hi, Dad.
[00:25:10]  And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk.
[00:25:17]  This is badass convict.
[00:25:20]  Right.
[00:25:20]  Just finished five years.
[00:25:22]  I'm going to have cookies and milk.
[00:25:24]  Yeah, mom.
[00:25:26]  On the Ceno Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption.
[00:25:34]  On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances.
[00:25:43]  The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
[00:25:51]  I'm an alcoholic.
[00:25:53]  And without this program, I'm a guide.
[00:25:57]  Open your free iHeartRadio app.
[00:25:59]  Search the Ceno Show and listen now.
[00:26:05]  I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really start making money.
[00:26:11]  It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast Eating Wall Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.
[00:26:18]  This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.
[00:26:28]  If I'm outside with my parents and they're seeing all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what?
[00:26:33]  Today now, obviously, it's like 100%.
[00:26:36]  They believe everything.
[00:26:37]  But at first, it was just like, you got to go get a real job.
[00:26:40]  There's an economic component to communities thriving.
[00:26:44]  If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail.
[00:26:48]  And what I mean by fellows, they don't have money to pay for food.
[00:26:50]  They cannot feed their kids.
[00:26:51]  They do not have homes.
[00:26:52]  Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them.
[00:26:56]  Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:27:04]  Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.
[00:27:13]  Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing.
[00:27:20]  I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between.
[00:27:24]  This season on Math and Magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario, financier and public health advocate Mike Milken, take-to interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.
[00:27:35]  If you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't play in this business.
[00:27:43]  Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and our own chief business officer Lisa Coffey.
[00:27:48]  Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed human promise behind it really makes it rise to the top.
[00:27:58]  Listen to Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:28:08]  Ah, we're back.

=== Moral Crusaders and Harmful Kids (13:54) ===

[00:28:10]  So in the almost 10 years that followed that first police report, which was again 2006, the Duggar family grew more popular and more powerful within right-wing political circles.
[00:28:19]  Mike Huckabee, former governor and presidential candidate, was regularly seen with both Jim Bob and Joshua.
[00:28:26]  They were very tight in with Huckabee.
[00:28:28]  In 2008, he hired Josh to help run his failed presidential primary campaign.
[00:28:33]  In 2012, Josh spoke at rallies for presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a man so bigoted that his last name was turned into a recognized term for the mix of shit, come and lube that results from anal sex.
[00:28:44]  In 2013, Josh Duggar was hired by the Family Research Council, who are themselves kind of like political Santorum.
[00:28:52]  Now, the FRC wanted him to be the new face of their organization, and he was made as like, I think he's like 1920s, like young man here.
[00:29:00]  He's made the executive director of FRC Action, the lobbying arm of the right-wing organization.
[00:29:07]  Actually, he would have been in his mid-20s, I think.
[00:29:09]  Now, a Fox News article functioned as a press release for this because Fox News is basically the press arm of the FRC.
[00:29:16]  And in that article, they wrote, quote, the FRC's political platforms include firm stances against abortion and same-sex marriage.
[00:29:23]  Josh and his wife Anna have been an inspiration to millions of Americans who regularly turn in to see the Duggar family show.
[00:29:28]  And all of us at FRC and FRC Action have long appreciated their commitment to the pro-family movement.
[00:29:34]  FRC Action president Tony Perkins said in a statement, we welcome him to the FRC Action team and look forward to taking our grassroots outreach to the next level.
[00:29:43]  Now, the FRC itself called Josh the new face of faith in politics.
[00:29:48]  People who walked in similar circles to the Duggar family at the time will claim that Josh was seen as an eventual candidate for higher office, perhaps even a potential presidential candidate someday.
[00:29:58]  That's always the dream of these people, right?
[00:29:59]  They want, like, Pence was a big deal in part because, like, that's as close.
[00:30:04]  That's the closest they've gotten.
[00:30:05]  One of their, you know, someone who's in the cult, so to speak.
[00:30:11]  And that's what they kind of hoped for.
[00:30:13]  He was being groomed from childhood to do something nationally in politics.
[00:30:18]  And as the face of FRC action, he fought to block and roll back the rights of LGBTQ people, conflating them with pedophiles and arguing against their right to adopt children because they might molest them.
[00:30:29]  Which again, he's a child molester, arguing that trans and gay people can't be trusted with kids because they'll molest them.
[00:30:36]  As he's molesting people, I don't know.
[00:30:38]  How much do you harp on it, right?
[00:30:40]  Like, it's the thing.
[00:30:41]  Well, but you know, I mean, he, because he's, here's part of the other thing with like the having everything under the umbrella of sin.
[00:30:46]  It's like, well, if you're, if you're in the club of, if you're in the Jesus club, you can always repent.
[00:30:53]  We can put you in front of the congregation, but we can't put these LGBTQ in front of the congressional.
[00:30:57]  They're never going to repent.
[00:30:59]  They might just raise their kids and not molest them and never repent for being gay.
[00:31:04]  Whereas it's better, I don't know.
[00:31:06]  That really is the attitude that it's better for these kids to be molested by godly people who can then.
[00:31:14]  To hammer that point home, to do a little bit of a tangent that does hammer that point home.
[00:31:18]  It's like a lot of when you get into like the Dominionist Reconstructionist, whatever, like if you get in talking about slavery, a lot of them will be like, slavery was good because they weren't Christian and the black people were in Christian households.
[00:31:32]  So the fact that they were in a Christian household as slaves and the way they were treated, it was a better life for them than being a heathen.
[00:31:41]  Their souls were saved.
[00:31:42]  Right.
[00:31:43]  souls were saved.
[00:31:43]  So that's also what you're again, what you're looking at.
[00:31:49]  It starts with the conclusion.
[00:31:50]  Oh, Jesus is head of everything and then is in charge of everything and then works backwards.
[00:31:56]  So anything that is closer to him as we define it is always going to be better objectively.
[00:32:04]  Yeah, you've seen the same argument has been made recently.
[00:32:07]  I forget the exact website, but there was just a big column about like how all of the indigenous people murdered at residential American conservative.
[00:32:14]  It was American conservative.
[00:32:16]  It was actually good because even though they died, they weren't heathens anymore.
[00:32:21]  So like any amount of death is okay if they're not heathens anymore.
[00:32:24]  Which goes back to colonialism and which is which they kind of both egg each other on colonialism and evangelizing to do fun things.
[00:32:33]  These people suck is the gist of the people.
[00:32:35]  These people, they're not great.
[00:32:38]  So in 2014, the Duggar family went to war against an anti-discrimination ordinance that would have gone into effect in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
[00:32:46]  The ordinance was meant to strengthen protections for LGBT and particularly trans residents.
[00:32:51]  It would have created a new position on the city staff dedicated to handling discrimination complaints pertaining to housing, employment, etc. for LGBT people.
[00:32:59]  It would have also banned businesses from discriminating against queer people.
[00:33:03]  The Duggars spoke out against this ordinance, and Michelle even went as so far as to lend her voice to a robocall.
[00:33:10]  I'm going to read a segment from this, and please do your best to not explode from the irony.
[00:33:16]  Hello, this is Michelle Duggar.
[00:33:17]  I'm calling to inform you of some shocking news that would affect the safety of Northwest Arkansas women and children.
[00:33:23]  The Fayetteville City Council is voting on an ordinance this Tuesday night that would allow men, yes, I said men, to use women's and girls' restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sleeping areas, and other areas that are designated for females only.
[00:33:35]  I don't believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter the private areas that are reserved for women and girls.
[00:33:46]  And obviously, if somebody, be they trans or not, had convictions for child molestation, they're not allowed to go into a restroom where children are because they're not allowed to get close to children.
[00:33:58]  Well, to be fair, she did not list their own beds as a place of privacy for, you know, women and children.
[00:34:04]  So it, you know, on her end, it works, right?
[00:34:06]  Yeah.
[00:34:06]  And they're, oh my God, their arguments after it came out.
[00:34:09]  We'll talk a little bit more about this later, but after it came out publicly of what Josh had done, there's this, they got questioned about like, well, you were just like yelling about how trans people shouldn't be able to use bathrooms because it's bad for kids, but your son molested your children.
[00:34:24]  How do you square that?
[00:34:25]  And like one of their arguments was, well, it's not, he wasn't a pedophile because he was a child too.
[00:34:33]  Okay.
[00:34:34]  Okay, Michelle.
[00:34:35]  Is that what you got to tell yourself to get to sleep at night?
[00:34:39]  Okay.
[00:34:40]  Now, that same year, 2014, more than 30 of Bill Gothard's female employees came forward with allegations that he had molested or sexually harassed them.
[00:34:51]  Have you been aware of this?
[00:34:53]  Yeah, this, yeah.
[00:34:54]  So this is a big deal.
[00:34:56]  And it like torpedoes his organization.
[00:34:59]  Some of the people he molested were children.
[00:35:01]  So again, this is the third child molester we've encountered in this community.
[00:35:06]  And there's, you can find a lot of other stories about.
[00:35:10]  Again, we quoted someone earlier saying, like, I knew multiple families where this had happened.
[00:35:15]  It's because this, in a lot of ways, this cult is built around providing predators with access to victims.
[00:35:21]  I was going to say, like, a cult just as a concept is built on predation.
[00:35:26]  And so, and predation is pretty much allowing the desires of the predator to be freely met, being humans, they'll be going to be sexual, and this is just going to happen.
[00:35:38]  Yeah.
[00:35:38]  Now, my cult is based around the desire to prey on the FDA, which is, I think, very ethical.
[00:35:45]  So, yes, we might attack FDA convoys.
[00:35:50]  We might kidnap FDA officials.
[00:35:52]  That's possible.
[00:35:53]  Anything's possible when the FDA is in play.
[00:35:56]  But that's the only people we hunt is the FDA.
[00:36:00]  And hey, if the first 44.
[00:36:02]  Maybe.
[00:36:03]  Maybe.
[00:36:03]  Well, and if you, you know what?
[00:36:05]  If you go through a bunch of iterations and the first 44 don't work, you'll have cult 45.
[00:36:11]  Oh, yeah.
[00:36:11]  There you go.
[00:36:13]  We could get a sponsorship from Billy D. Williams.
[00:36:15]  Yeah.
[00:36:15]  Yeah.
[00:36:16]  There we go.
[00:36:17]  Or if you get to, you know, the 57th iteration, you got the Heinz.
[00:36:19]  And we get that Heinz money, which we use to buy arms in order to fight the FDA.
[00:36:24]  I'm pretty sure you can get John Kerry as a sponsor if you get that Heinz money.
[00:36:27]  I think, you know, John Kerry has a combat experience, which will be useful for our guerrilla war against the Food and Drug Administration.
[00:36:35]  This is all coming together.
[00:36:36]  Yeah.
[00:36:37]  Now, so Bill Gothard, 2014, more than 30 of his female employees, and some of these people, again, say that he did it when they were children.
[00:36:47]  Bill resigned from the Institute for Basic Life Principles and from ATI.
[00:36:51]  But women continue to come forward with allegations.
[00:36:53]  Eventually, like more than 60, I think we're at right now.
[00:36:55]  Like we're talking Cosby numbers.
[00:36:57]  And obviously, it's much more than that, right?
[00:36:59]  That's the number who were willing to come forward.
[00:37:01]  Ten more victims sued him in 2016.
[00:37:04]  Here's a quote from an article about that by the Washington Post.
[00:37:07]  One of the Jane Doe plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleges that she was raped by her father and her other relatives and says she was sold by her father through human trafficking when she was a minor.
[00:37:16]  She said she reported the abuse and trafficking to IBLP staff, which failed to report to authorities.
[00:37:21]  Families in the ministry would sometimes send their children to institutes across the country, including its headquarters in Illinois.
[00:37:27]  When the Jane Doe plaintiff was at a ministry's training center, she and Gothard both called her father and Gothard asked him if abuse allegations were true, the lawsuit states.
[00:37:36]  After her father denied the allegations, she said Gothard threatened her.
[00:37:39]  Gothard taught that children were to obey their parents, even if they were being sexually abused, the lawsuit says.
[00:37:44]  The Jane Doe then alleges that Gothard had sexual intercourse with her without her consent, saying she notified IBLP of the rape through an email in 2013.
[00:37:52]  She alleges that an IBLP employed counselor also raped her in his office at an IBLP training center in Indianapolis.
[00:38:00]  David Gibbs III, the plaintiff's lawyer, said that she is not sure how old she was at the time of the alleged rapes, but was likely around 17 or 18 years old.
[00:38:07]  Again, these kids don't have documents a lot of the time.
[00:38:10]  Another woman in the lawsuit, Ruth Copley Berger, who was the adopted daughter of the counselor in question, alleges that her father sexually molested her.
[00:38:17]  I'm reading this very unpleasant.
[00:38:19]  It's fucking endemic.
[00:38:21]  It is all over.
[00:38:22]  And I have never heard any allegations about Jim Bob this way, but it is a lot of the patriarchs that are involved in this.
[00:38:29]  It is fucking everywhere in this cult.
[00:38:32]  It's not cool and good.
[00:38:34]  It's really not cool and good.
[00:38:36]  But, you know, thankfully, this is the only large religious-based organization where that's ever happened.
[00:38:41]  Yes.
[00:38:42]  No other church has done anything like this.
[00:38:44]  It's not like when you claim that there's a hierarchy that gives certain people more access to God, they will use that perceived moral authority to prey on people.
[00:38:54]  Yeah.
[00:38:55]  That's never happened another time.
[00:38:57]  In fact, there's a giant banner outside the head of the archdiocese in Boston, molestation free since 1 AD.
[00:39:04]  That's right.
[00:39:05]  That's their code.
[00:39:06]  The famously never been involved in any horrible...
[00:39:10]  I know, you know, one of the things I've always been interested in, I'm, again, not a religious person, but there's a pretty fascinating history of Catholic anarchism and Christian anarchism in general that is based in a lot.
[00:39:23]  A lot of what it's based on is this idea that like, well, every time you set up a hierarchy that gives certain that presupposes certain people are closer to God than others, it seems to be a nightmare that leads to death and molestation and war.
[00:39:37]  Perhaps that should never be the case, which I also think, I don't know, not a Bible expert, but it seems like Jesus would have been more on board with it.
[00:39:43]  Yeah, well, it's just like, let's try something different.
[00:39:48]  The most frustrating thing is the lack of acknowledgement that it's that being at a specific place in a specific hierarchy, regardless of what you think that means, somehow makes you in a way less human as far as not being susceptible to abusing that position.
[00:40:07]  Yeah.
[00:40:07]  And it's just, it's kind of like, well, no, that's, you have to, that's, you know, there's, yeah.
[00:40:14]  And it's, it always, and you always see like there's just a, it's the lack of transparency is how is the first wall to go up.
[00:40:19]  Yep.
[00:40:20]  Uh, because it's, yeah.
[00:40:23]  Yeah, it's a bummer.
[00:40:24]  Um, so at this point in U.S. history, it should be clear that any moral crusaders who base a lot of their arguments on the idea that trans or gay people are threats to children, as a general rule, these people are either harming kids themselves or enabling other people who are harming kids.
[00:40:42]  It's just such a consistent thing.
[00:40:45]  Um, not 100%, but a lot of the people who do that kind of shit.
[00:40:49]  And the rank hypocrisy and the rank hypocrisy of the Duggar clan goes further than that.
[00:40:54]  Well, they kept their mouths fucking shut about Bill Gothard in the wake of his fall from grace.
[00:40:58]  They'd been doing that for years because their job was to subtly influence people towards fundamentalism without scaring them off.
[00:41:04]  So it's not like they had been super public about Bill, but he, they never like, I don't, I don't have any real faith in the idea that they've disavowed this guy either.
[00:41:15]  Yeah, it's well, it's like they're the Tom Cruise to his miscovage.
[00:41:20]  Yeah.
[00:41:22]  Now, Josh, the face of the Family Research Council and the last best hope of Heavenly Rule on Earth, spent his entire time as a family values lobbyist as a paid member of the website Ashley Madison.
[00:41:34]  Now, if you don't recall, Ashley Madison was basically, it may still exist, was a dating app for married people who wanted to cheat on their spouses that eventually got all of its data leaked and hilarity ensued.
[00:41:46]  From 2013 to 2015, he paid a total of $986.76 to the site.
[00:41:52]  So he was a power user, you could say.
[00:41:56]  Yeah.
[00:41:56]  That's a lot of money to spend on the adultery website, Christian Moral Crusader Justice.
[00:42:02]  76 cents.
[00:42:03]  Is it like tax?

=== Predatory Behavior in Dating Apps (07:10) ===

[00:42:04]  Yeah, it has to have been, right?
[00:42:06]  Was it one of those, oh, I hate like you can't even go and cheat on people without having that 99 cents thing.
[00:42:12]  Like, just round up.
[00:42:13]  Come on.
[00:42:14]  I bet he was really angry about tax being all his adultery.
[00:42:17]  He was so ass.
[00:42:18]  This is going to fund sin.
[00:42:20]  People might get welfare.
[00:42:22]  This makes me angry, which makes me horny.
[00:42:26]  So he listed his desire in finding, he listed his desire on like the way it's a dating website, right?
[00:42:33]  So you get to like list your stuff about you.
[00:42:35]  He listed his desire as finding an extramarital partner for, quote, conventional sex, experimenting with sex toys, one night stands, open to experimentation, gentleness, good with your hands, sensual massage, extended foreplay teasing, bubble bath for two, likes to give oral sex, likes to receive oral sex, someone I can teach, someone who can teach me, kissing, cuddling and hugging, sharing fantasies, and sex talk.
[00:43:03]  Now, I wouldn't be getting into this if it weren't for the fact that every aspect of his life and job was based around the idea that all of this should be illegal, right?
[00:43:12]  Like, now he listed his services, listed as services, the fact that he had, like, these are like the reasons people should be interested in him.
[00:43:20]  The fact that he had good personal hygiene, a secret love nest, and was drug-free.
[00:43:25]  Now, also in 2014, the year that Bill Gothard got busted for molesting children and one of the years in which Josh Duggar paid money to cheat on his wife, the four older Duggar sisters cashed in on their family fame by publishing the book, Growing Up Duggar.
[00:43:39]  It's all about relationships.
[00:43:41]  Josh and his wife Anna were invited to discuss their marriage.
[00:43:44]  The book includes this passage from Josh.
[00:43:47]  As I became a young man, I was constantly tempted to have lots of wrong thoughts and often battled to keep my heart right.
[00:43:53]  One of the greatest things that helped me in my struggles was my parents' commitment to accountability.
[00:43:57]  They were faithful to talk with each of us children if we were willing to share honestly and openly with them to maintain a clear conscience.
[00:44:04]  I learned quickly that great freedom can be achieved by accountability, but that deep accountability requires humility and openness.
[00:44:10]  I often had failures in my early teenage years, but I found that I had a clear conscience only when I was willing to confess my thoughts quickly to God and to my parents.
[00:44:19]  The Bible passage Duggar cites in this, he cites John 1.19, which reads, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness, which is what you were talking about.
[00:44:32]  So wait, wait, wait.
[00:44:33]  You're telling me the family that does a capitalism on how it runs released a form statement with an inspirational quote?
[00:44:44]  Well, I mean, they released a book that he gave a quote, but yeah.
[00:44:47]  I mean, and it's, it's, yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, yeah.
[00:44:52]  The way in which the daughters he molested, his sisters have responded to this is also very bleak.
[00:44:59]  And I'm, because they're also his victims, I'm not going to like get into a lot of criticism or great detail about it, but like, I mean, they're trapped.
[00:45:06]  We'll talk about it a little later.
[00:45:08]  Now, of course, Josh kept his sins hidden while he was, you know, and he just had said that like you have to confess quickly and openly to God and people is like, but he kept his sins hidden while he was lobbying against the rights of gay and trans people to raise children.
[00:45:20]  This is a big part of what he did for the FRC.
[00:45:22]  He was a big anti-gay rights advocate.
[00:45:25]  And it was always judges like, this is bad for kids.
[00:45:27]  But those sins did not stay secret.
[00:45:29]  In May of 2015, the gossip website In Touch succeeded in foyering their way to the truth.
[00:45:35]  They published the long-buried 2006 police report detailing abuse by Josh Duggar.
[00:45:40]  Josh and his family initially claimed to deflect criticism, or initially attempted to deflect criticism by making weasel claims about the exact extent of the abuse.
[00:45:49]  In a Facebook statement, Josh wrote, 12 years ago, as a young teenager, I acted inexcusably, for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret.
[00:45:57]  I hurt others, including my family and close friends.
[00:46:00]  There was a lot of talk about like, oh, it was above the clothes.
[00:46:02]  It was never like...
[00:46:05]  It's almost as gross as anything just like reading them try to talk about why it's not really a big deal that he molested four of his sisters in a babysitter.
[00:46:12]  Now, Josh was forced to resign from the Family Research Council.
[00:46:16]  Jim, Bob, and Michelle made weasily statements about how they'd watched their son like a hawk ever since the initial incidents and that they believed he'd changed with God's help.
[00:46:24]  But the hits kept coming.
[00:46:26]  Two of their daughters, Jessa and Jill, chose to self-identify as their brother's victims in July.
[00:46:31]  And they actually spoke up to defend Josh and claimed that they'd been victimized by InTouch publishing the police report.
[00:46:37]  Jessa claimed, the system that was set up to protect kids, both those who make stupid mistakes or have problems like this in their life and the ones that are affected by those choices, it's greatly failed.
[00:46:46]  I don't agree with them on this.
[00:46:47]  And again, I'm not going to like morally go after them for defending Josh because whatever, they have to live in this, but I don't think InTouch did anything wrong.
[00:46:58]  They did not publish any names.
[00:46:59]  They did not say, here's who he molested.
[00:47:02]  They published that this guy was a sexual predator who was not punished and who had a very public position claiming to defend children.
[00:47:08]  That's in the public interest.
[00:47:10]  Oh, yeah.
[00:47:10]  I'm sorry, but it is.
[00:47:11]  Yeah, it just sounds like it's...
[00:47:15]  It's that kind of like with the Kind of that cult atmosphere.
[00:47:25]  There's that kind of sometimes literal in this figurative bunker mentality where it's like, yeah, there's problems in here, but they're supposed to be just in here.
[00:47:34]  And so you kind of, you put a, you put a unified front and attack the out there.
[00:47:39]  Yep.
[00:47:40]  Yep.
[00:47:40]  That's exactly what's and it's, you know, you also, you get into this.
[00:47:45]  There's this, there are cases there have always been of people who have children who are molested and do not see what was done to them as bad.
[00:47:53]  And I guess a good public example would be you have a couple of different rock stars who had sex with groupies who were 14, 15, 16, right?
[00:48:00]  A number of those women grew up and were like, I'm fine with it.
[00:48:04]  It was a good experience.
[00:48:06]  It's still rape.
[00:48:07]  It's still like, even if, and I'm not going to say like they should be more, obviously, if that happens to you and you feel, you don't feel traumatized, that's good.
[00:48:15]  I guess it's always better to not feel traumatized.
[00:48:18]  But like that person, that is still statutory rape.
[00:48:20]  That's not acceptable behavior.
[00:48:23]  It's the power dynamic that's where even if they, even if the person on the lower end of that feels that was consensual enough where they weren't, but still like, yo, these people, they're taking advantage of you.
[00:48:34]  And it's another step in predatory behavior that could come out as worse for the next person.
[00:48:42]  Yeah.
[00:48:42]  And it's, it's the, I mean, obviously this is much more severe than that.
[00:48:45]  Yeah.
[00:48:45]  Um, because yeah, it's this is like obviously along the same chain of it is the fact and it's very morally common.
[00:48:54]  And I'm not going to get into this much more and focus on like his victims, but like the idea that like they have downplayed what was done to them, which, you know, people have the freedom to say it, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a serious crime.
[00:49:07]  Right.
[00:49:07]  It's, it's, yeah.
[00:49:09]  But you know what is a serious crime?

=== Economic Thriving vs Community Failure (03:19) ===

[00:49:14]  Not buying these products.
[00:49:16]  Not buying these products and services.
[00:49:18]  That's right.
[00:49:18]  That's right.
[00:49:19]  Jesus Christ.
[00:49:20]  Okay.
[00:49:21]  Well on a recent episode of the podcast Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Bajanista Alicia to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
[00:49:37]  What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
[00:49:44]  We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never ever taught.
[00:49:53]  Financial education is not always about like, I'm going to get rich.
[00:49:57]  That's great.
[00:49:58]  It's about creating an atmosphere for you to be able to take care of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family.
[00:50:08]  If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
[00:50:14]  Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:50:25]  I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him and I said, hi, dad.
[00:50:30]  And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk.
[00:50:38]  This is badass convict.
[00:50:40]  Right.
[00:50:40]  Just finished five years.
[00:50:42]  I'm going to have cookies and milk.
[00:50:44]  Yeah, mom.
[00:50:46]  On the Ceno Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption.
[00:50:54]  On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances.
[00:51:03]  The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more.
[00:51:11]  I'm an alcoholic.
[00:51:13]  And without this program, I'm a guy.
[00:51:17]  Open your free iHeart radio app.
[00:51:26]  I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really start making money.
[00:51:31]  It's financial literacy month, and the podcast Eating Wall Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.
[00:51:39]  This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.
[00:51:48]  If I'm outside with my parents and they're seeing all these people come up to me for pitches, it's like, what?
[00:51:53]  Today now, obviously, it's like 100%.
[00:51:56]  They believe everything.
[00:51:57]  But at first, it was just like, you got to go get a real job.
[00:52:00]  There's an economic component to communities thriving.
[00:52:04]  If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail.
[00:52:08]  And what I mean by fail is they don't have money to pay for food.
[00:52:10]  They cannot feed their kids.
[00:52:11]  They do not have homes.
[00:52:12]  Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them.
[00:52:16]  Listen to Eating Wall Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:52:25]  When you listen to podcasts about AI and tech and the future of humanity, the hosts always act like they know what they're talking about and they are experts at everything.

=== Federal Crimes and Child Porn (15:17) ===

[00:52:33]  Here at the Nick Dick and Pole Show, we're not afraid to make mistakes.
[00:52:38]  What Koogler did that I think was so unique?
[00:52:41]  He's the writer director.
[00:52:43]  Who do you think he is?
[00:52:44]  I don't know.
[00:52:46]  You mean the president?
[00:52:47]  You think English the president?
[00:52:48]  You think Canada has a president?
[00:52:50]  You think China has a president?
[00:52:51]  Lazla proves that.
[00:52:54]  God, I love that thing.
[00:52:56]  I use it all the time.
[00:52:57]  I wrap it in a blanket and sing to it like it's like the old Polish saying, not my monkeys, not my circus.
[00:53:05]  Yep.
[00:53:05]  It was a good one.
[00:53:06]  I like that saying.
[00:53:07]  It is an actual Polish saying.
[00:53:09]  That is an actual Polish.
[00:53:10]  It's a better version of play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
[00:53:13]  Yes.
[00:53:14]  Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time.
[00:53:16]  I actually, I thought it was.
[00:53:17]  I got that wrong.
[00:53:18]  Listen to the Nick Dick and Paul Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:53:28]  Ah, we're back.
[00:53:30]  So, right.
[00:53:32]  So Josh's sisters kind of came to his defense.
[00:53:36]  They argued that the charges against that their brother was a pedophile and a child molester were, quote, so overboard and a lie.
[00:53:43]  One argument the Duggar parents made was that since the abuse occurred while he was also a child, he can't have been a child molester or a pedophile.
[00:53:50]  We'll put a pen in that for right now.
[00:53:52]  It's worth noting that two other Duggar sisters were molested by Josh.
[00:53:56]  Again, it started with two, and I don't know the exact timeframe, but four sisters.
[00:54:01]  At least one was molested after Jim and Bob Duggar, Jim Bob, and Michelle became aware of the abuse.
[00:54:07]  Another victim of Josh was a non-family member who worked as a babysitter for the family when she was a teenager.
[00:54:13]  I have not found a lot of details about this case.
[00:54:15]  The Duggar family repeatedly stated their belief that their TV show would not need to be canceled as a result of these revelations.
[00:54:21]  Yeah, it was like 2006 was when Oprah kind of figured stuff out.
[00:54:26]  So you kind of have that as far as like a timeline.
[00:54:28]  Yeah.
[00:54:29]  So before that, it seems likely that it was like 2003 to 2006.
[00:54:33]  If he was born in 88, that's 15 to 18.
[00:54:37]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:54:38]  On July 16th, though, TLC permanently canceled 19 kids and counting.
[00:54:43]  Some Republicans who'd posed with members of the family, like Marco Rubio, slinked off into the background and tried just not to make a statement on the matter.
[00:54:51]  But Mike Huckabee charged headfirst into this as a culture war issue.
[00:54:54]  He called Josh's actions inexcusable, but that doesn't mean unforgivable.
[00:54:58]  And then said that, like, we're, you know, coming to the family with love and support.
[00:55:03]  If only they had been around when cancel culture was in full swing.
[00:55:06]  Yeah.
[00:55:08]  Can't cancel someone just for repeatedly molesting children.
[00:55:12]  Now, on July, yeah, so right around this time, the user database for Ashley Madison leaked.
[00:55:19]  All of this comes out.
[00:55:20]  Josh Duggar's outed.
[00:55:21]  Then it comes out that he's been paying to cheat on his wife.
[00:55:26]  Not a great year for Josh Duggar 2015.
[00:55:28]  He made another piddling apology where he called himself a hypocrite and talked about his pornography addiction.
[00:55:33]  It's like, I'm a, it's the evil porn that has made me do all these bad things.
[00:55:38]  Almost immediately after this, a sex worker, Danica Dylan, came forward and filed suit against Josh, alleging that during a paid consensual sex encounter, he brutally assaulted her.
[00:55:49]  Josh denied the allegations, and Dylan did eventually withdraw her lawsuit, claiming I didn't have the money to take on TLC or the Duggar family.
[00:55:56]  And I, again, don't have a lot of detail on that.
[00:55:59]  Seems very like a lot of suit.
[00:56:05]  I get why she would have done that.
[00:56:06]  I believe her.
[00:56:07]  Seems totally in character for Josh Duggar.
[00:56:10]  We know he's willing to pay for sex one way or the other.
[00:56:12]  We know he's willing to assault people.
[00:56:14]  I believe her.
[00:56:15]  His sense of boundaries do not exist.
[00:56:16]  His sense of boundaries don't exist.
[00:56:18]  He claims to have some evidence that, like, I think of the taxi receipt, he was in a different place.
[00:56:21]  I don't know.
[00:56:22]  I'm not an expert on the case.
[00:56:24]  Josh checked himself into rehab.
[00:56:26]  Of course, it was a biblically based program called Reformers Unanimous.
[00:56:30]  And for a while, he was able to successfully hide from public scrutiny.
[00:56:34]  This kind of goes away a little bit.
[00:56:36]  His wife, Anna, stayed with him, and TLC did eventually decide to reboot the Duggars show without Josh under a new name.
[00:56:43]  And it seemed as if they were going to get to sweep all this under the rug in the name of TLC's profits, obviously.
[00:56:49]  But that's not what happened.
[00:56:50]  From a write-up by Delanier Bartlett, who again grew up in the same community.
[00:56:54]  In late 2019, there was a hint that trouble might be on the way back to Josh when federal agents raided his used car dealership.
[00:57:01]  Always a sentence you can say about the best people.
[00:57:04]  The entire incident was kept very hush-hush.
[00:57:06]  The nature of their investigation, what they were looking for, if they found anything, none of it was released to the public.
[00:57:11]  But those of us who knew Josh Duggar suspected it was something more.
[00:57:14]  Sex offenders, especially pedophiles, require long-term intensive therapy from qualified mental health professionals.
[00:57:20]  You can't pray it away.
[00:57:21]  And Josh was practically swimming in a culture that excuses and enables sex offenders.
[00:57:26]  Evidence shows the Duggars knew something else was going to go down after the raid.
[00:57:30]  In 2020, Josh started moving a lot of his assets.
[00:57:33]  He sold the family home and bought a new unfinished home in Springdale, but he didn't move into it.
[00:57:38]  Instead, he sold it to an LLC in Anna's name and immediately put it up for sale.
[00:57:43]  He then moved Anna and their six children into a windowless outbuilding on Jim Bob's property.
[00:57:48]  He also shuttered his used car dealership and immediately opened four limited liability corporations in Anna's name.
[00:57:54]  Remember, in the Duggars' fundamentalist worldview, only the husband, as the head of the family, is supposed to own and manage the family's financial resources.
[00:58:02]  But not if you've just gotten raided for child porn.
[00:58:06]  And see, I mean, total amateur bastard move there.
[00:58:08]  Look, this is the point where you're supposed to go to Mexico.
[00:58:12]  He should have gone to Mexico, right?
[00:58:13]  Go to Mexico.
[00:58:15]  I'm not going to give a child molester crime advice here.
[00:58:17]  No, but you already, look, you got a used car dealership.
[00:58:21]  Always, you know, next car.
[00:58:23]  You have an untraceable or harder-to-trace car.
[00:58:27]  You know, you can go down to Mexico.
[00:58:29]  I hear there's some great doctors that'll give you some plastic surgery.
[00:58:34]  Yeah, that's a shame.
[00:58:35]  Well, not a shame, because he's a pedophile.
[00:58:39]  He also, yeah, so again, this just goes to talk about like how related to convenience all of this shit is.
[00:58:48]  Like, it's perfectly fine to like, you know, women aren't supposed to have access to money at all.
[00:58:56]  But like, if you know, you need to hide the fact that you, or if you need to hide your assets because the feds are after you for child porn, well, God will understand.
[00:59:06]  Yeah.
[00:59:07]  Now, we have more recently learned what the feds were like after on this raid.
[00:59:12]  So there's this raid in 2019, but they don't say, you know, they're the feds.
[00:59:15]  They're not going to say what anything is about until they're done building their case.
[00:59:18]  That's the way that kind of stuff tends to work.
[00:59:20]  And of course, we now know that he was raided because Josh was viewing and downloading child pornography.
[00:59:26]  He absolutely is a pedophile and a rather extreme one based on the evidence we have.
[00:59:31]  The Homeland Security special agent who examined Josh's computer described what he found there as, quote, in the top five of the worst of the worst that I've ever had to examine.
[00:59:42]  And so again, with Bell and Kat, we do some work with Interpol in terms of trying to track down pedophile, particularly people making child porn.
[00:59:50]  And the way that it works is that they, they have people who actually view the pornography and will take screen grabs from it and cut out, you know, the human beings, remove anything that's actually like sexual in nature, anything that's obviously is illegal.
[01:00:04]  And we'll just get like photos of like stuff that's in the room.
[01:00:06]  So like toys that are in the room, like maybe views out of, and the goal is to like, where is this happening?
[01:00:11]  Because sometimes there's certain resorts that these people use.
[01:00:14]  Is this the same person in this other video?
[01:00:16]  Well, you don't, you never see the people, but it's like, here's a toy to find.
[01:00:20]  If there was like not the person involved in the act, but like if you see someone.
[01:00:25]  Yeah, anything that might help you track down details around it.
[01:00:29]  And it's very complicated and painstaking work.
[01:00:32]  But the worst work is the people, and it's a very small number of people who are actually viewing the original pornography, which is you have individuals like that who are in law enforcement, both federal and kind of internationally.
[01:00:45]  And I think there's also there are certain like researchers and journalists who can, there's like ways to get legal approval to like analyze certain porn.
[01:00:54]  And like that kind of work is the worst thing I can imagine doing because like they have to look at the uned like the child abuse videos.
[01:01:04]  I can't imagine a more difficult or traumatizing job.
[01:01:07]  And a guy whose job is to do that says, Josh Duggar's pornstash is like one of the worst things I've seen in my career looking at child pornography.
[01:01:17]  Yeah.
[01:01:18]  Which is a statement.
[01:01:19]  Yeah.
[01:01:20]  I mean, it's, oh, yeah, any of that.
[01:01:22]  Cause like I've, I actually, it's about a decade ago now.
[01:01:26]  I was on a grand jury, which is, if people aren't familiar with that, there's you get, you get jury duty, you're on a case.
[01:01:33]  Grand jury duty is where you have four weeks.
[01:01:37]  It's a nine to five in a room and you see a bunch of, and the prosecutors bring evidence and you kind of give a yes or no vote to whether it goes to trial.
[01:01:46]  Yeah, right.
[01:01:47]  And we, I was in Multnomah County.
[01:01:49]  It was the, I forget which number it was, but we had cases where it was involved like child abuse, sexual abuse, and the kids had to come in and be witnesses.
[01:01:59]  And they, we had, and we had people that work specifically just with them and with the stuff that they have to deal with coming in and helping them through it.
[01:02:06]  And it was just all so just incredibly tense and fraught.
[01:02:10]  And to just be in any part of that, especially the part where you see the trauma happening in real time.
[01:02:19]  Yeah, that's.
[01:02:20]  Yeah.
[01:02:21]  I mean, it's, there's that whole the legal framework set up to deal with all of that, all those kind of cases is very interesting in a lot of ways.
[01:02:31]  I interviewed a guy when I was working for Cracked years ago whose side job was.
[01:02:36]  So obviously when children are molested, they're going to need to talk to some give statements to law enforcement, right?
[01:02:42]  Which means ideally, if you're trying to do this in the most ethical way, because cops don't normally talk to children about stuff like that, you want to train them, right?
[01:02:50]  And you don't want to train them on children because you don't want to like have a kid come in.
[01:02:54]  You don't want to learn on the job with that sort of thing because it's already traumatizing for the kids.
[01:02:59]  So there are actors, generally adult actors who look much younger, who train in how to mimic being a molested child and will train like federal agents and stuff to interrogate, not interrogate, that's right, but to interview children who have been victims of sex.
[01:03:14]  Like it's there's a lot of work that goes into trying to protect kids as much as possible within what is already a nightmare for them.
[01:03:21]  But what's the worst that can happen?
[01:03:22]  Like a satanic panic or something?
[01:03:26]  And if anyone is super bummed out by what we just talked about, go to Bellingcat and look up WhatsApp or FlashCard for the nuclear secrets article.
[01:03:37]  Yeah, that all of the guys.
[01:03:39]  So yeah, we did an article recently.
[01:03:41]  I had no involvement in it, which, you know, it was people who are much better journalists than me.
[01:03:45]  But yeah, they found that like all of the people guarding our nuclear secrets had like been using public flashcard apps.
[01:03:51]  You could search them and find like code phrases to like get onto nuclear weapons sites.
[01:03:56]  It was like a place in like Eastern Europe that was never a confirmed nuclear site.
[01:04:01]  Yeah, there's a lot now.
[01:04:02]  It's very funny.
[01:04:04]  Very funny how slapdash all of that is.
[01:04:07]  But thankfully they put a little more thought into, I don't know, child molestation, which is good.
[01:04:12]  So yeah, again, this fucking, the Fed, whose job is to like analyze this stuff is like Josh Duggar's computer is one of the worst things I've seen in my career of watching nightmares.
[01:04:25]  The agent stated that he found multiple images on Josh's computer depicting sex abuse with children from 12 to 18 months old.
[01:04:32]  So he has a preference for very, very young kids.
[01:04:36]  Now, this came after Josh had made public statements about his Ashley Madison account, which he blamed on his pornography addiction.
[01:04:43]  As a result of that, he'd installed a program called Covenant Eyes, a Christian-based web, like Christian-based program that takes screenshots of your online activity at random and uses machine learning to analyze them to see if you're looking at porn, and it sends those screenshots to a trusted ally to keep you accountable, right?
[01:05:02]  The goal is to stop you from looking at porn.
[01:05:04]  Now, Covenant Eyes apparently did not detect Duggar's prolific child porn browsing because he'd installed Tor and was using, obviously, like the dark web is where you go for that shit, right?
[01:05:15]  You want to buy drugs, you want to hire a hitman who's actually a Fed, or you want to find child pornography.
[01:05:19]  That's what the dark web is for.
[01:05:22]  And yeah, so presumably that's how he found his porn.
[01:05:25]  Josh was charged with just a lot of federal crimes.
[01:05:30]  A whole bunch of federal crimes.
[01:05:32]  He currently faces up to 40 years in federal prison.
[01:05:35]  The U.S. district judge who handled his detention hearing said that he could not return home to live with his wife and children for reasons that I shouldn't need to explain.
[01:05:43]  Now, the cult being the cult, Josh is still their special boy, and his crimes are obviously the fault of Satan and probably those sinful children.
[01:05:50]  As a result, his community leapt into action to defend him while expressly ignoring the interests of vulnerable people who weren't Josh Duggar.
[01:05:58]  They found another quiverful couple, Maria and LeCount Reber, and convinced LeCount that they should put Josh up while his trial went on.
[01:06:06]  LeCount told the judge their home would be good for Josh because it doesn't have Wi-Fi or children.
[01:06:11]  But of course, the story behind this was much more fucked up than was initially reported.
[01:06:16]  From a write-up by Jessica Lay on the website churchleaders.com, Josh Duggar's father, Jim Bob Duggar, called people in his church to see if any would be custodians for his son when Josh was released on bail.
[01:06:28]  Jim Bob found a man willing to take Josh in.
[01:06:31]  Except that man's wife teaches piano lessons to children, and she was not comfortable having Josh home with her all day because she would be alone with him while her husband was at work.
[01:06:40]  That didn't matter to the husband, however.
[01:06:42]  She has to find a new place to teach all those children because her husband wants Josh to live with them.
[01:06:46]  That's a quote from a member of the community.
[01:06:49]  Well, you know, if he hadn't been rearrested, he would have been, they would have sent him to live with that trooper.
[01:06:55]  Well, he's in prison.
[01:06:56]  Yeah, if he hadn't been.
[01:06:58]  He will be soon, maybe.
[01:06:59]  Yeah.
[01:07:00]  So Maria Reber has said that she is uncomfortable being alone with Josh Duggar and is also uncomfortable with her with her 22-year-old daughter being alone with him.
[01:07:08]  However, at Wednesday's hearing, Reber testified, My husband has made the decision and I'm here to support that decision.
[01:07:15]  Healthy shit.
[01:07:16]  Healthy shit.
[01:07:18]  Now, in the reaction to Josh Duggar's charges, we see more evidence of women in his community supporting him at a cost to their own safety.
[01:07:25]  And again, these women are victims.
[01:07:26]  I'm not like criticizing for them, but it's this is what's happening.
[01:07:29]  They are mortgaging their own safety and the safety of their family members to protect this man.
[01:07:35]  You know, can keep in mind, too, like they're in they're under the same value system where, like, yeah, he did this, but you know, like I held hands with someone.
[01:07:46]  You know, I looked at a man when I was out in town recently.
[01:07:50]  Yeah.

=== Women Sacrificing Safety for Men (02:37) ===

[01:07:51]  Yeah.
[01:07:51]  Both that same where none of us is perfect.
[01:07:53]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:07:54]  He molested multiple children.
[01:07:56]  One time I looked at Kurt Russell in a movie and thought he was hot.
[01:07:59]  Equal crimes, which they kind of are.
[01:08:02]  Also, you know, that again, that tension of like, oh, well, the civil authority or the government has civil authority over a few things and then everything else is under God.
[01:08:11]  And well, this is a family matter, so it's under God.
[01:08:14]  So we're going to be a united front.
[01:08:16]  Yep.
[01:08:16]  Yeah.
[01:08:16]  Yeah.
[01:08:17]  God, it's not great.
[01:08:20]  So the write-up I just quoted cites Rachel Dinhollander at several points.
[01:08:24]  She's sorry, that, and that was, it wasn't a member of the community that was quoted there.
[01:08:27]  It was Rachel Din Hollander.
[01:08:28]  Well, it kind of is.
[01:08:29]  So Rachel Din Hollander is best known as the first woman to speak out and file a police report against USA gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, one of the most prolific child abusers in the history of child abuse.
[01:08:42]  She says she was groomed for the abuse she received by Nasser because she was molested as a child in an evangelical church.
[01:08:49]  She was disgusted to see Maria Reber being pushed to accept a child molester into her home.
[01:08:54]  Quote, every single family who takes piano from her and the wife herself has to uproot their routine, livelihood, and the child's musical education because Josh, everyone is expected to bear the cost except Josh.
[01:09:06]  And the wife's own very reasonable fears about being alone all day with a man who enjoys the sexual torture of toddlers didn't matter to the husband either.
[01:09:13]  The men in the situation are the leaders making the decisions while the women are expected to submit.
[01:09:19]  She also provides what I think is a realistic explanation for why Ann Duggar, Josh's wife, has stood by her husband for so long, even after getting uncontrovertible, incontrovertible evidence that he is not safe to be around their children.
[01:09:32]  Quote, Din Hollander scenes sees Anna Duggar's silence about her husband's sexual proclivities as symptomatic of certain evangelical teachings about the proper role of wives.
[01:09:41]  Din Hollander referenced several concepts promoted in some conservative circles, including the complimentarian teaching that wives need to respect and submit to their husbands.
[01:09:50]  Some conservative Christians emphasize the idea that God hates divorce so much that they encourage women to stay in abusive situations.
[01:09:57]  And it is not unusual for Christian women to be taught that they are responsible for men's lust.
[01:10:02]  If they are married, women are encouraged to make sure to have regular sex with their husbands so that the men will not be unfaithful.
[01:10:09]  Anna certainly couldn't tell anyone because that would not be respectful, said Din Hollander.
[01:10:14]  That's how we counsel wives in these marriages, but she was certainly taught to have sex more to fix it.
[01:10:19]  Her own mother-in-law wrote blog articles that said as much.
[01:10:23]  TLC at least canceled counting on in June of 2021 after 11 seasons on the air.

=== Cults Deeper Than Religion (08:01) ===

[01:10:29]  They claimed that it was important to give the Duggar family the opportunity to address their situation privately, as if the family had not been given ample opportunity to address the situation privately in the more than 10 years between the first allegations and the widespread reporting on Josh's behavior.
[01:10:44]  Hey, yeah, you uh you remember when we all thought honey boo-boo was the worst thing on TV?
[01:10:50]  Yeah, Jesus Christ.
[01:10:53]  I mean, yeah, this was all great.
[01:10:56]  But like it's like, oh, yeah.
[01:10:58]  No, that's what we were.
[01:10:59]  That's what we looked at.
[01:10:59]  That's what people were freaking out of.
[01:11:01]  This was just sitting there the whole time.
[01:11:04]  Well, Sean, how do you feel?
[01:11:08]  Do you feel good about this too, Parter?
[01:11:10]  Oh, yeah, I feel good that it's out there now.
[01:11:14]  I feel like the people and some of the in the depth is it's something that comes up more in people that are kind of more versed in the communities.
[01:11:27]  And so it's good to have it, you know, out there and to have other people kind of look at or be aware of these communities, especially because, you know, again, in that kind of like you brought up like the people that are under the umbrella of authority, employers, people, this and that.
[01:11:45]  You know, it seems like maybe like this isn't just like an off-road into some little group.
[01:11:50]  It's like this is, this comes back to climate change because you have people that either their concern is the end of the world, either to prepare it or that it's coming.
[01:12:01]  So they don't really care what shape the planet's in.
[01:12:04]  Yep.
[01:12:05]  The employer.
[01:12:06]  That'll fix it all if we just fix it all.
[01:12:08]  If we have to focus on doing all this moral stuff, you can't be everybody.
[01:12:12]  The way we recycle or treat the environment with our waste has nothing is fine because we're a successful company.
[01:12:19]  So we're clearly blessed by God.
[01:12:21]  It's, you know, it's wanted to seem like a tangent, but it's just, there's all these things that are very real to people who may not feel they have any sort of connection to what happened in this story.
[01:12:36]  That's like, well, no, this is this thinking that leads to this leads to a lot of other problems that we have because this specific religious ideology, and obviously Quiverful is kind of a more extreme expression of it, but the thoughts behind it are incredibly mainstream.
[01:12:53]  Yeah.
[01:12:54]  Because again, it being a cult that you don't get to the really, you don't get to the really heart of it until you're deep into it.
[01:13:01]  So a lot of stuff, and again, it's kind of, it's an offshoot of something larger that's gone mainstream, like you talked about with the Southern, you know, the Southern Baptist Convention, what, what's been brought up in past episodes about evangelical coming together as a voting block and throwing themselves behind the Republican Party and then eventually kind of being more the main driver.
[01:13:26]  I'm sure you can go back and look and see a lot of the stuff with the Tea Party, which, you know, it goes as a precursor to Donald Trump.
[01:13:33]  And you see the same thing.
[01:13:35]  It's like grabbing by the pussy.
[01:13:36]  Well, you know, he's, you know, he's, he's one of us.
[01:13:38]  He's, it's, it's, you know, who hasn't, who hasn't held a hand or grabbed a pussy?
[01:13:43]  It's, you know.
[01:13:43]  Yeah, who hasn't, yeah, if you looked at someone with lust in your eyes, it's the same as assaulting somebody.
[01:13:48]  So he's no worse than any of the rest of us.
[01:13:49]  And they, they see him as, you know, obviously he became president like they wanted Josh Duggar to.
[01:13:54]  So they were going to kind of try to keep the way Greece for him to go and not hold him accountable because they see him as a ticket.
[01:14:02]  Yep.
[01:14:02]  Yep.
[01:14:05]  Well, Sean, this has been bleak, but important.
[01:14:09]  I'm glad that you picked this subject.
[01:14:10]  I've been wanting, again, I'd been meaning to kind of deal with this at some point because it turns out we actually have some of the same friends who have gotten involved in aspects of this.
[01:14:19]  And I've seen people like over the years kind of, I feel like they, they kind of being more, if tending to be conservative and religious, tend to slip into it.
[01:14:29]  There's kind of, and it's, and it's not necessarily that all religion or conservatives necessarily lead to that.
[01:14:38]  There's actually, I've seen a lot of, it's, yeah, there's a lot of the great reporting on this has been done by other Christian, even evangelical news sources who are very critical of this and are very critical of like Bill Gothard and the abuse in that chunk of the community.
[01:14:51]  This isn't a problem with Christianity.
[01:14:54]  This is a problem with, I mean, it's a problem with human beings and the way religion generally works.
[01:14:59]  I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a deeper problem.
[01:15:02]  It's not just an, it's not like the specific issue isn't Christianity.
[01:15:05]  The specific issue is how people abuse each other and use systems, including religious systems, to abuse each other.
[01:15:12]  Right.
[01:15:14]  To be really clear and to also kind of, again, bring people in who may be not as familiar on the religious side, more on the secular side, you know, think about it.
[01:15:24]  This is going to hurt, but think about Bill Maher for a second and, you know, the whole like the kind of along that lines of where it's like, oh, religion, you're just taking shots at religion.
[01:15:33]  Religion is a problem.
[01:15:34]  If religion went away, all the problems would be solved.
[01:15:39]  That kind of thinking or posturing.
[01:15:41]  It's like, well, yeah, people killing like there's deaths after sporting events when the team won.
[01:15:48]  Like burning cars and flipping like, people are going to be people.
[01:15:52]  It's the Christianity gets not singled out, but it is looked at mainly because of the power structure that it has within this country puts it right at the heart of a lot of the things that you're doing.
[01:16:05]  And it's power and structures of power and hierarchy that always are what enables the abuse, whatever form it takes.
[01:16:11]  Because again, if you want to talk about, and I think people, you know, and I had my angry atheist years, but I think one of the ways in which people go wrong is thinking that it's something inherent to religion when it's something that's inherent to power.
[01:16:22]  Because, for example, the fucking, we've done a number of episodes on Nexium, you know, that horrible cult, which was very much based on like these evolved and scientific attitudes.
[01:16:36]  That's at least the way they framed it.
[01:16:38]  It was not like supposed to be a religious cult as it was supposed to be as much of like a, it was a, it was a rape cult for the NPR set, you know, like that was the way it was framed.
[01:16:47]  It's just anytime you give people these positions of power where you're investing them with special knowledge and acknowledging that they have some sort of like special knowledge and special cause.
[01:17:00]  When you're saying that like that person is closer to some sort of special truth that makes what they say and do more valuable than other people, you invest them with a kind of power that will more often than not be used to hurt people.
[01:17:13]  Right.
[01:17:14]  That's the way it is.
[01:17:15]  Yeah.
[01:17:16]  You have Quiverfool on one end and, you know, I don't know, goop.
[01:17:21]  Yeah, goop, Nexium.
[01:17:23]  I mean, again, and there's an element of this that's like, this isn't all cult behavior.
[01:17:28]  Yeah.
[01:17:29]  Because I don't think, I don't know if I'd call Goop a cult, but Goop, a number of the things that are toxic about Goot are also things that are toxic about cults, in the same way that like, a number of things that make you a successful stand-up comedian could also make you a good cult leader, because certain these are, these are patterns that can be in there.
[01:17:46]  Yeah, I don't know this is this is more of a discussion than I want to get into right now, but there's a lot that gets into why cults are deeper than religion.
[01:17:56]  Yeah, cults are about some things very hardwired in the human mind.
[01:18:01]  Um and I don't think that that hierarchy is hardwire, it's not even hardwire is the wrong way to put it Um, we have been abusing each other using systems of power for, you know, 10,000-ish years, if not much longer.
[01:18:14]  Um, and there's a reason why, and it's because our brains are vulnerable to that in the same way that certain people's brains are, you know, vulnerable to heroin or alcohol or whatever.
[01:18:28]  Everyone's brains are vulnerable to cults.

=== Guinea Pigs and Human Minds (07:50) ===

[01:18:31]  It just depends on finding the right cult.
[01:18:34]  Um, and it's my, I think the reason that Christian cults are much more dangerous is in our societies because they have so much more political power, because they're so much more mainstream that it makes it easier to hide, right?
[01:18:45]  Because a lot of Nexium gets busted up much quicker than Bill Gothard does, you know?
[01:18:51]  Um, but that's not anything inherent to religion.
[01:18:53]  That's something inherent to the level of power we give that specific religion in our society.
[01:18:58]  Yeah, it's more under an accepted umbrella.
[01:19:00]  Yeah.
[01:19:01]  Yeah, back to umbrellas.
[01:19:02]  So, Sean, you want to, you want to plug anything before we got me personally, I don't have like on myself, I don't do much on social media.
[01:19:13]  Uh, a couple things I would like to plug that are just near and dear to me, aside from you know, Ted Wheeler, recalling Ted Wheeler.
[01:19:20]  TotalRecallPDX.com.
[01:19:23]  There is a place in down by Los Angeles.
[01:19:27]  It's LA Guinea Pig Rescue.
[01:19:29]  It can be la guinea pigrescue.com.
[01:19:32]  Uh, and they have like a YouTube channel.
[01:19:34]  I have, uh, I have had four guinea pigs.
[01:19:37]  I still have three with me.
[01:19:39]  Um, they're, they're sweet little creatures.
[01:19:42]  Uh, they, uh, there's a thing they do called popcorning.
[01:19:45]  It's like uh, they get super excited.
[01:19:47]  It's like a full-body joygasm.
[01:19:48]  Oh, babies.
[01:19:51]  And uh, it's one of those things where it's like with that.
[01:19:53]  And I've had hamsters too.
[01:19:55]  There's this people kind of think it's like, oh, it's, it's a starter pet, like, because it's they're gentle or easy enough a kid can take care of them.
[01:20:02]  It's like, no, they're still complex creatures with big personalities and specific needs.
[01:20:08]  So LA Guinea Pig Rescue.
[01:20:10]  Oh, so kids get them and then can't take a turtle problem all over again.
[01:20:15]  Yeah.
[01:20:15]  And they have like one thing that people don't always realize with guinea pigs is they are unlike hamsters where you can have them by themselves and they do their own little thing.
[01:20:22]  Guinea pigs are very social creatures to the point where there are there are laws in at least Belgium and Switzerland that like pet stores have to sell them in pairs.
[01:20:33]  Oh, that's because they get very, very depressed if they're by themselves.
[01:20:38]  My kittens came in a pair and I would never split them up.
[01:20:41]  And, you know, it's like they have to, and there's also, you have to make sure they're bonding and this and that.
[01:20:45]  But anyway, they do, LA Guinea Pig Rescue does it's like 2,000 to 2,500 adoptions a year.
[01:20:52]  Right now, they're in a bit of a struggle because they just rescued almost 200 guinea pigs.
[01:20:58]  Ooh, was this like a pandemic?
[01:20:59]  A lot of people in Northern California.
[01:21:02]  I want to say it was like someone that was like grazing guinea pigs to feed to pythons or they were like, you know, pythons made food.
[01:21:11]  Right.
[01:21:11]  Or they were like hoarding them or whatever, but they weren't taking care of them.
[01:21:14]  So they were really caring for them.
[01:21:16]  And so to the point where there's a A lot of them are special needs.
[01:21:21]  Some may never be adopted and they'll just be, they'll make sure they're taken care of for the rest of their lives.
[01:21:26]  But, you know, it's like because they, when they're smooshed together, they were given the wrong food.
[01:21:30]  So like their messed up teeth, their eyes missing because they get bites.
[01:21:35]  And it's, it's really bad.
[01:21:39]  So what is this place called again?
[01:21:40]  LA Guinea Pigs.
[01:21:41]  LA Guinea Pig Rescue.
[01:21:43]  Well, so if you're help out the LA guinea pig rescue.
[01:21:46]  Yeah.
[01:21:46]  That's what they call it.
[01:21:47]  And like I said, there's videos on that they have a YouTube channel.
[01:21:53]  And even if you're not, you know, in the LA area, because you can volunteer and help out there, even if you don't like aren't able to send a couple bucks to help them, just looking at the videos or like, if you're going to get a guinea pig, like looking at these, because they're there to, because they want the animals to live their best lives.
[01:22:10]  Yeah.
[01:22:11]  So just informing yourself and being prepared and taking care of the animals.
[01:22:20]  It's kind of like you saw with the pandemic.
[01:22:22]  People got a lot of dogs and put them back.
[01:22:24]  It's, there's this, I mean, people, if you understand the concept of foie gras, how terrible that is, this is like emotional foie gras, where you're just stuffing an animal with your sadness, sadness to feel the hole, to fill the hole inside yourself.
[01:22:40]  And it's like, that's, it's, it's not good.
[01:22:43]  And it's going back to cycles of abuse and human behavior.
[01:22:45]  It's like, it's just downcycling the abuse onto animals when they can be a huge source of unconditional love and helping you break out of your cycles.
[01:22:53]  They help me a lot with like depression, anxiety, stuff like that.
[01:22:57]  It's hard to be sad around a guinea pig.
[01:22:58]  Yeah.
[01:22:59]  So LA Guinea Pig Rescue, one other thing.
[01:23:02]  So there is a movie that came out.
[01:23:05]  It's about one hour.
[01:23:06]  It's a documentary.
[01:23:07]  It came out in November 2020.
[01:23:10]  It's called The Forgotten Battalion.
[01:23:12]  I have a friend who I met through my brother when they were in high school.
[01:23:19]  He was in the Marines, went and fought in Afghanistan.
[01:23:23]  Last day there is like doing a like they're having him show the patrol.
[01:23:29]  And they're like, oh, let's go down this way, which is not a way they usually go.
[01:23:34]  So IED, he has ended up losing both legs.
[01:23:40]  And it's so the area where they were at, and this is in 2008 in Afghanistan, it's about the size of Oregon, I believe.
[01:23:48]  And they were past the supply lines.
[01:23:51]  They were past air support.
[01:23:53]  They were just left out there.
[01:23:55]  And why it's called The Forgotten Battalion is it has, as far as I know, and I hope this is true because it's terrible news if it isn't, the highest suicide rate in the armed forces.
[01:24:06]  Oh, boy.
[01:24:07]  Four times the average for the armed forces and like 14 times the average American.
[01:24:12]  Jesus.
[01:24:13]  But why I'm drawing people towards this.
[01:24:17]  So Chris Bride, that's the guy's name.
[01:24:20]  He amazing guy.
[01:24:24]  He's worked.
[01:24:26]  It's a very direct and blunt documentary about dealing with suicide, about dealing with consequences of the consequences of these wars.
[01:24:38]  So because he's very direct.
[01:24:39]  It's like, yeah, no, I wake up and I want to kill myself every day.
[01:24:43]  But he is like, he's all anywhere he's been, like San Antonio in the VA up here.
[01:24:48]  He was in Oregon for a while.
[01:24:50]  The documentary was actually filmed on the Oregon coast.
[01:24:53]  He would always try to do stuff to kind of help out the other veterans.
[01:24:59]  He's doing this as like they went on like a fishing trip on the coast.
[01:25:02]  And it's basically, they all get together.
[01:25:04]  They talk about it.
[01:25:05]  It's been super, super helpful for all the soldiers involved.
[01:25:14]  It's like a couple people that had worked with him wanted to do this documentary because of the change that he had been able to affect.
[01:25:21]  And again, it's very, it's, it's B.
[01:25:24]  It's not, it's, I feel like sometimes we were not always as direct and realistic.
[01:25:30]  And not in like a bleak, terrible, blunt way, but it's just basically like, no, this is the reality.
[01:25:35]  This is how they deal with it.
[01:25:37]  Yeah.
[01:25:38]  And so just kind of promoting the Forgotten Battalion.
[01:25:43]  You can find it on Apple or Amazon.
[01:25:46]  I would prefer Apple over Amazon, just given the company.
[01:25:50]  Yeah, you're kind of picking this.
[01:25:54]  Yeah.
[01:25:55]  Tim Apple hasn't gone to space yet, so I generally agree with you there.
[01:26:00]  Yeah, okay.
[01:26:00]  The Forgotten Battalion, the LA Guinea Pig Rescue.
[01:26:03]  And check out Total Recall PDX, especially if you're in the Portland area and you want to sign on to recall our shitty mare.
[01:26:11]  Sean, thank you so much for your donation, for the episode idea, and for helping me bring it to life.

=== Promoting the Forgotten Battalion (02:20) ===

[01:26:21]  The Frankenstein monster of sadness.
[01:26:23]  Yeah.
[01:26:24]  All right.
[01:26:24]  Well, that is an episode.
[01:26:26]  Bam.
[01:26:29]  You know the famous author Roald Dahl.
[01:26:30]  He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG.
[01:26:33]  But did you know he was a spy?
[01:26:35]  Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
[01:26:42]  All episodes are out now.
[01:26:44]  Was this before he wrote his stories?
[01:26:45]  It must have been.
[01:26:46]  What?
[01:26:47]  Okay, I don't think that's true.
[01:26:49]  I'm telling you, the guy was a spy.
[01:26:51]  Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:26:58]  Readers, Katie's finalists, Pablo Sis.
[01:27:01]  We have an incredible new episode this week for you guys.
[01:27:04]  We have our girl Hillary Duff in here, and we can't wait for you to hear this episode.
[01:27:08]  They put on Lizzie McGuire at 2 a.m. video on demand.
[01:27:10]  This guy's playing.
[01:27:11]  2 a.m.
[01:27:11]  2 a.m.
[01:27:12]  Whatever time it is.
[01:27:13]  Lizzie McGuire and I'm like wild bats.
[01:27:16]  It was like a first closet moment for me where I was like, you're like, I don't feel like she's hot like the rest of them.
[01:27:20]  No, no, no.
[01:27:21]  I was like, she's beautiful, but I'm appreciating her in a different way than these boys are.
[01:27:25]  I'm not like, listen to Las Culturistas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:27:38]  Hello, gorgeous.
[01:27:39]  It's Lala Kent, host of Untraditional Ila.
[01:27:41]  My days of filling up cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley.
[01:27:46]  Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate.
[01:27:55]  It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's untraditionally Lala.
[01:27:59]  Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:28:07]  I actually drop better when I'm high.
[01:28:10]  It heightens my senses, calms me down.
[01:28:13]  If anything, I'm more careful.
[01:28:16]  Honestly, it just helps me focus.
[01:28:19]  That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself.
[01:28:22]  And now he's in prison.
[01:28:24]  You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different.
[01:28:31]  So if you're high, just don't drive.
[01:28:34]  Brought to you by Nitza and the Ad Council.
[01:28:37]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[01:28:40]  Guaranteed human.