This morning, a couple of friends tagged me in the latest news about “sex pest” Josh Duggar. He is currently behind bars having been arrested in Arkansas yesterday. According to People Magazine, Josh was nabbed by Homeland Security. He is being held without bond, although so far, we don’t know what the charges are. He will supposedly go before a judge sometime today. This news comes just a few days since Josh and his long suffering wife, Anna, announced that they are expecting their seventh child, another girl.

I do remember that in November 2019, it was in the news that Josh’s office at the car dealership where he was working was raided by the feds. Back then, the Duggars claimed that it wasn’t true that any member of the Duggar family was the target of an investigation of any kind. Clearly, they were lying, which is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments. But, as Josh correctly pointed out back in 2015, when he was at the pinnacle of his sex pest scandal, he has been the biggest hypocrite ever. It’s not a surprise that Josh and members of his family lied about his legal issues in 2019.

The Duggars are definitely a family a lot of us love to hate. I remember first hearing about them in 2004, when Jim Boob and Michelle Duggar were featured in a Discovery Health special. At the time, I believe Michelle was pregnant with her fourteenth child– Jackson, I believe. After that, the Duggars determined that having more kids was a way to make the fame and money train roll. They popped out five more, with the youngest, Josie, being born extremely premature. There would have been one more girl, but Michelle miscarried her 20th child in 2011. However, they are now raising Michelle’s grandnephew, Tyler, so I guess in a manner of speaking, they got their 20th kid, after all.

Their reality show, 19 Kids and Counting, aired on TLC until May 2015, when the sex scandal came to light. It turned out that Josh Duggar had molested four of his sisters and a babysitter back in 2002 or so. The Duggars hid this information for years, and when it did finally get exposed, they downplayed what Josh did. Later that year, Josh was also outed for having an Ashley Madison account and cheating on his wife. At the time, she was pregnant with their fourth child, Meredith. Josh had been working for the Family Research Council in the Washington, DC area, but he was forced to resign in the wake of the many scandals that plagued him. In November of 2015, Josh was also sued by a porn star named Danica Dillon, who claimed he had assaulted her.

I thought things were calming down a bit in the wake of the scandals. I hadn’t heard of any other issues relating to his issues with pornography, objectifying women, or molesting girls. But I had heard about him being sued for real estate fraud back around 2019, and many people were horrified that he and Anna were still making so many kids. Josh evidently lost the lawsuit because he missed the court date.

It will be interesting to find out why Josh is in trouble this time. It sounds like he did something pretty serious. However, when I look at his mug shot, I notice he has kind of a weird smirk on his face and looks like he might be on something.

Maybe I shouldn’t feel sorry for Anna, but I do. It’s hard to wrap my head around why she continues to support Josh and stay in the marriage. But, I’m sure that Anna has significant barriers to getting divorced. Besides the fact that divorce is something fundie Christians don’t tend to do, she would be hard pressed to be able to support her huge family on her own. And based on the way Jim Boob Duggar treats his own children — ahem, Jill Dillard– it’s likely that if she ever stepped out of line, he would cut her off and do whatever he could to take the children from her. Now… whether or not he would be successful, I don’t know. But when you are abused, it’s hard to see beyond your own perceptions. That’s why so many people in abusive relationships never manage to break away until tragedy strikes or they are somehow forced out of the situation. Sadly, some people never escape.

Anyway… I hope that the marshals who arrested Josh didn’t do it in front of his children. I know a lot of people think Josh deserves the humiliation of having his kids witness seeing him in handcuffs, but I think that would be very traumatizing, especially for the youngest ones. And Josh’s kids may have a shithead for a father, but they are completely innocent and have no doubt been through enough already.

I guess this could be why two of Josh’s brothers so suddenly got married. They probably had an inkling that Josh was about to be busted and didn’t want the weddings ruined by Josh’s latest scandal Either that, or they wanted to draw attention away from it. Same thing goes for Anna’s pregnancy announcement, which came a week ago. They had to do a reveal, since they might have known Josh was going up the river.

Moving on…

I have to write a short COVID-19 related rant. Yesterday, I woke up to read a news story about a couple whose son died of COVID-19 shortly after they arrived in Hawaii on vacation. The couple were vaccinated and had tested negative for COVID-19; but their son, who was under age 11 and had an underlying health condition, was not vaccinated and clearly wasn’t tested. He developed symptoms of illness just hours after landing.

Given that the boy got sick so soon after arrival in Hawaii, I can only surmise that he picked up the virus at home. Officials are still trying to figure out how and where the boy was exposed to the virus. But that didn’t stop a lot of people on Facebook from berating the couple for traveling. Some people wondered why the parents were tested, but the boy wasn’t. I’m not sure about that myself.

After reading one too many awful comments about how this couple deserved to lose their son to COVID-19 because they dared to travel, I had to say something. I don’t understand how people can be so utterly shitty to each other. These parents LOST A CHILD, for God’s sake! Even if they had been completely irresponsible, and they clearly weren’t, it still would have been tragic for them to lose their son. Would most people be laughing and pointing fingers at them if their son had, say, died in a car accident? What if he’d contracted the flu or pneumonia? Would they blame the parents for that? What good does it do to laugh and judge these parents now? Their son is gone. I think they’ve suffered enough already.

COVID-19 is caused by a tiny virus. Plenty of people have gotten sick, even after doing all the “right” things. The sad truth is, it’s a very sneaky and insidious virus. And no matter what, this child was innocent, and was clearly destined to be sick, since he must have picked up the virus somewhere at home. The fact that he was in Hawaii on vacation when he died is immaterial.

I took one lady to task for being such a judgmental twat. She came back with a lengthy response about why it’s okay for her to have no sympathy for parents who lost an unvaccinated child, simply because they dared to go on vacation. I am so sick of people who have no empathy for other people, simply because they disagree with their choices. My response to her was, “Have a nice life. You are beyond hope.” She thought that was funny. Well, fuck her.

I have an appointment to get the first Moderna shot on Wednesday. Bill says I might be able to get the “one and done” J&J shot on Monday, if I want it. Although the idea of blood clots is a little scary, I would like to be vaccinated and have it behind me as soon as possible, especially since Bill has to go away on business Wednesday. Anyway… the upshot is, I’ll be getting a shot of some sort next week.