Hunter Frederick, a Christian public relations expert once rumored to have been hired to help manage the fallout from the sexual abuse allegations surrounding Josh Duggar, star of "19 Kids and Counting," by the Duggar family, says the recent apology from the embattled Christian figure and his parents is not enough to sate the effects of the scandal that has engulfed the family.
"I have no reason to think their apology wasn't sincere, but an apology is one small thing that needs to happen in this very large problem," Frederick told The Christian Post on Thursday. "
The majority of people that are against the Duggars want some kind of legal punishment, which can't happen because of our country's statute of limitations law. That's why this whole thing is very sticky from a crisis management standpoint. He (Josh) has to pay his debt to society back in some form or fashion. Most of the time that's legal action, so how does that happen when he can't be prosecuted?" added Frederick, who is president of Frederick & Associates.
Some folks thought that Fredreick had taken on Josh Duggar's case, which forced him to post the following tweet:
I don’t represent the #DuggarFamily just FYI everyone please calm down!
— Hunter Frederick (@hunterfrederick) May 27, 2015
When asked why his PR firm was not representing the Duggars, Frederick had this to say: Frederick explained that his clients go through an intense vetting process to determine whether they are capable of being helped and whether it's worth the company's investment. Despite rumors that he was hired to help the Duggars get through the scandal, Frederick said things did not work out with the Duggar family for reasons he could not reveal.
He said that his firm looks for clients who have: "a willingness to admit fault, transparency, willingness to want to change. … Especially with our Christian clients, repentance is critical. This isn't our first time doing this, we know when something's going to work out and when it's not."
Well it sounds to me as if certain members of the Duggar family are not willing to admit fault, be transparent, or express a desire to change.
You know you fucked up as a Christian when even a PR company who specializes in helping Christians who have fucked up will not fucking help you.
I hope that corny, howdy-doody ass family goes broke. Creepy, nasty people.
ReplyDeleteI would like to point out his post had some factual errors.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Duggars cannot be charged on these old felonies, it is because of the state of Arkansas' poor laws that are very swayed against child victims of sexual predators. In most states the statute of limitations for child victims does not start until they have reached the age of 18. Those are not "our country's" statutes, each state makes their own laws.
Well I would like to point out that the factual errors are Mr. Frederick's and not mine.
DeleteAt least not this time.
Oh Gryphen I meant Frederick's not yours. Sorry if I wasn't very clear in what I posted.
DeleteAsk Senator Murkowski how to fix that problem! Her father reversed the statute of limitations on rape in 2003 and it says you can file ANY time for felony rape! So far as this response to Duggars from that firm? OUCH!
DeleteJimBob Duggar is essentially God to his family. They literally have to go through him to get to God. That's what the patriarchy movement is all about, deifying men (the Duggars supposedly deny they are part of this movement, but they are totally lying. Lying for Christ is not lying). In the patriarchy belief system, these patriarchy men represent God on earth and they don't think laws, rules, and/or regulations apply to them. They only answer to God, and of course (SHOCKER), God always agrees with them, and tells them exactly what they want to hear. Whatever these men do, no matter how shitty it is, all they have to do is say they asked for Jesus's forgiveness, and voila! Jesus forgave them so WTF do you think YOU are? Legalities be damned. So yeah. A firm like Frederick's ain't gonna get anywhere with anyone with the Duggars' warped mindset.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. This is what makes incest and pedophilia so terribly dangerous in a scenario like this. Combine that with the fact that, the Christian image of the family must. not. suffer. harm, and you've got a recipe for repeat offenses. The continued plan on all sides to continue this television disaster only adds fuel to this fire. Can't imagine any of the victims EVER feeling comfortable enough or safe enough to speak out or to ask impartial outsiders for grief-counseling> Not now, not later, not ever. Emotionally speaking, the complete scenario guarantees that they are permanently maimed.
DeleteBeyond my great concern for the Duggar and other girls who were molested, I have great concern for Josh Duggar's own three (and soon to be four – and counting) toddlers!! Can't imagine that they are safe, either. If he had no inhibitions about going after his own sisters and children of friends of the family, why would he have inhibitions about going after his own children? Ask a child molester, and they will tell you they. can't. stop. what they are doing.
I was told by a male authority figure in a patriarchal church that God had put him in charge, so if I questioned him, I questioned God, which was a sin. I was 16 and immediately realized this line of thinking could be used to justify sexual abuse. He was also full of comments about how it's the girl's responsibility to dress and behave in a way that doesn't trigger lust in boys (and he even used this to explain our dress code; it was to protect us girls from inadvertently triggering lust in our adult male teachers -- creepy, right?!).
DeleteTo the best of my knowledge, this man never sexually abused anyone, but as I look back, the red flags are glaring. At the very least, it was a system set up to justify victimization of girls by boys/men. This was communicated effectively enough that when a peer molested me, I didn't dare report him because I knew I would face scrutiny for how I dressed. Ironically, part of why he molested me (in front of his friends) was because I was so prudish that my humiliation made it funnier for them.
As extreme and sheltered as this environment was, it's liberal compared to what the Duggars grew up with. I was allowed to read whatever I wanted, and I did have a few teachers who encouraged critical thinking. My parents were horrified by the "question me = question God" line, not enough to remove me from this man's so-called authority, but at least they did "legitimize" my desire to question and challenge ideas that seemed suspicious. So as damaging and traumatic as the religious brainwashing was, I did have access to other influences and ideas. I can't even imagine what the Duggar girls' lives were and are like.
I have to give this guy high props for taking a stand against criminals who hide behind religion, forgiveness, etc etc etc. That photo is the creepiest thing I've ever laid eyes on. Christian quiverfull bible thumping thugs, I wonder whom they're in cahoots with? Did he keep it in his pants while being a missionary overseas or is he just into incestuous pedophilia?
ReplyDeleteI also noticed it was reported to authorities via Oprah in 2006...why did it suddenly become public in 2015? My guess he has never stopped and someone blabbed. Just my two cents.
Delete@ 5:32pm
DeleteSomeone had a written a letter and put the letter in a book. Someone else got a hold of the letter exposing their coverup of Josh's sexual assaults on his sisters and another little girl.
He admitted to assaulting one unrelated little girl along with 4 of his own sisters so I am assuming by now there are many, many other victims.
DeleteCan they still be sued in civil court by the victim who is not a Duggar?
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteYes. What will Josh do then?
DeleteNo. A statute of limitations would also apply.
DeleteI imagine that girl and that family are part of the same twisted cult and would never even consider it. The girls in these cults don't have full personhood.
DeleteYeah, what they are, sadly, are walking and breathing baby machines. Maybe if they were TAUGHT something besides Jesus did this, Jesus did that, etc. they would THINK once in awhile and speak up for themselves. They are NOT cherished or loved as they should be and Jesus would weep.
Delete"Especially with our Christian clients, repentance is critical. "
ReplyDeleteWhich causes one to wonder what is critical for their Muslim clients, Buddhist, Hindu, Flying Spaghetti Monster-ites?
By virtue of those other belief systems, they don't get a free pass with "confession". In the Eastern philosophies the self is ultimately responsible for all choices made and has to atone for them. If not in this lifetime, then in another. Atheists, as Gryph will point out, believe in living their morality NOW and in the present. This precludes the mentality of asking for forgiveness and receiving it without any real consequences for your actions. At least in Catholicism you are supposed to say your Hail Mary's and Our Father's and maybe pay some money, for your "punishment".
DeleteThis Hunter Frederick guy doesn't seem too interested in helping the VICTIMS. What about the girls????
ReplyDeleteIf what 5:24 says is true - and I have no reason to not believe it - then the Duggar girl victims won't be able to get outside help. At least not until they're grown and hopefully deprogramed.
DeleteHopefully, they won't turn to drugs and alcohol to deaden their deep-seated anger and resentment.
DeleteCuz that's what usually happens.
Anonymous 7:51, you are right. Another route that is taken is suicide. But life-long depression is pretty much a sure thing. Recent research indicates that life-long health issues (due to deep-seated unresolved emotional issues) is almost always a sure thing as well. He has literally maimed his victims, for life. And daddy (and mommy, too) looks like he is set and determined to take good care of Josh.
DeleteMy prediction: Josh will soon enter GOP politics in Arkansas, and he will get elected.
The motherduggers. So ends their gravytrain. Hypocrisy, thou is thy name. Dont let the door hit you in the ass.
ReplyDeleteReligion is toxic.
DeleteDon't let your kids be Duggared
Of course, Mr. Fredrick is saying the Duggars are being stubborn about repentance. The Duggar men are ONLY reading comments on the Xtian sites (collective cowards that they are), and think they're home free cuz of Jesus' forgiveness. HAH!
ReplyDeleteThe truth is that real-time America is sickened by the JoshBob scandal and Mr. Fredrick knows the battle is too huge to be hindered by a client's even tiny amount of hubris.
I have no words for this reality usa reality family. But? the girls that this young man banged? How are they? and the parents? did they grow up like that? I am curious why this family believes this was ok for many years and now repents on national tv. Sooooo tired of crappy reality tv and garbage shows. It waste valuable time and energy
ReplyDeleteO/T but this is disturbing, Gryphen.
ReplyDeletePolice are fatally shooting people at twice the rate reported by FBI, analysis finds
...The three are among at least 385 people shot and killed by police nationwide during the first five months of this year, more than two a day, according to a Washington Post analysis. That is more than twice the rate of fatal killings tallied by the federal government over the past decade, a count that officials concede is incomplete.
“These shootings are grossly underreported,” said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief and president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving law enforcement. “We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don’t begin to accurately track this information.”
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/police-are-fatally-shooting-people-at-twice-the-rate-reported/article_828cd4cf-5d87-581d-b3b8-e93aefddebd5.html
Your phone is ringing. You have been nervous the past few weeks, and for good reason. You have been thinking about that time you went to see the Arkansas State Trooper with Jim Bob and his son Josh. (Some people even think your church was the Duggar's landlord when the abuse happened in the Duggar's house, and that this could even have had something to do with Jim Bob deciding to take his entire family elsewhere to worship.)
ReplyDeleteIt has been a bad few weeks. Why would the media even care? Hasn't everything been forgiven? The show had great ratings and everyone was living happily ever after. Could this be In Touch Magazine in touch for your comment? Does anyone really know it was you with the Duggars and Cpl. Hutchins? 2003 was a long time ago, before Cpl. Hutchins was known as Inmate Hutchins. How could you know Hutchins had his own problems?
When you finally push talk you discover that it is a local newspaper reporter. He has a few questions about that visit with Cpl. Hutchins.
Details (actual church elder name withheld by the newspaper) here:
http://www.pressreader.com/usa/northwest-arkansas-democrat-gazette/20150531/281689728416291/TextView
"I was there from the begining to the end," the witness said. The corporal took no notes and ade no recording, the witness said.
"He didn't even pull out a piece of paper. I remember thinking it was really odd. There was a desk in the room with some chairs."
The police corporal "told Joshua that since you're from a good family and have a good support group and good friends, he wasn't going to go any further," the witness said. "He did say that if you ever do this again, you'll be taken away or something like that. He definitely didn't raise his voice. He was calm and serious. He repeated that if you ever do this again you'll be taken away."
So the elder thought the meeting was odd. Maybe there was something he didn't know at the time?
Anonymous 8:35 PM: Wow, just wow to what you said. No words. Using Jesus as a Get Out of Jail Free Card. Literally. And getting away with it. For years and years.
Delete1006 happens all the time
DeleteI've been doing a lot of research into Fundie religions, and the FACT of the matter is, with so many children two parents cannot watch over the comings and doings of very large families such as those in the FLDS (Fundamenal Lattter Day Saints) where polygamy is practiced along with enouragement for very large families, and idiot Duggars, guess what INCEST WILL HAPPEN
ReplyDeleteBut the extreme sexual repression and isolation of the victims figures in just as much as, if not moreso than, the extreme size of the families, don't you think?
DeleteIncest really does not cross the minds of most kids raised in a healthy environment, even in large families.
I don't care what you do! But if you bring harm to the women the children and the elderly? I will beat you like a dumb dog!
ReplyDeleteLet's assume as the duggars want us to assume that josh "only" molested three of his sisters before his 14th birthday.
ReplyDeleteLet's also assume he'd molested "only" sisters younger than he.
Wow, isn't Josh just a knight in shining armour. And, BTW, he is the eldest and has no older sister. Not that it would make a damn bit of difference. He, after all, is the heir to the throne. Or was!
DeleteI've been wondering about the behavior of the Learning Channel, but now I'm thinking that maybe inaction is the smarter idea for the time being. Rather than emphatically severing their relationship with the Duggars outright, which could foster sympathy given the appalling support we've heard out of Huckabee and Cruz, maybe they're just calling it a 'hiatus' till people are so sick to death of the name, that announcing cancellation later on will meet with all the more indifference.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing for that Duck Dynasty piece of dirt to get support for his gay bashing, but we're not so sick a society that enough will turn a blind eye to child molestation to pressure the Duggars back onto TV screens, are we? If so, we're even more fucked than I've supposed.
Phil Robertson advocated taking young (16-years-old, no more than that) brides so they could be more easily molded to serve their lords and masters. Very ISIS like. His show is still on.
DeleteI was nauseated at how much my evangelical family and friends supported the DD dick, but they share his views on homosexuality, so they were thrilled that a public figure dared to stand up to the secular media and be persecuted, blah blah blah. Their Facebook feeds have been universally silent on Josh Duggar, though.
DeleteThe Duggars need to lose in the court of public opinion.
ReplyDeleteCancel the show.
Shun them like the Amish culture does.
Take away the free stuff.
Even their christian friends will get tired of supporting a family of 21.
Don't know about their arrangement with TLC, but TLC paid good money to put a huge addition onto Kate plus Eight Minus the Husband. And she lives in a rather expensive area in the Burbs of Philly.
DeleteOf course the Buggerers will scream that they'd be homeless if TLC takes away their house and their show. It's persecution when it happens to folks who happen to be rwnj's. It's "the breaks" for everyone else.
If Frederick wouldn't touch the Duggars with a ten-foot pole, it's probably not unreasonable to assume that other PR firms have likewise declined to intervene on their behalf. This makes sense of something that has puzzled me for the last ten days -- how is it that the Duggars, with their media empire, have so thoroughly bungled their response to this story?
ReplyDeleteIt's basic PR. When there's a story this bad, this damaging, about you and your brand, you want to get out in front of it and control the narrative. In politics, sometimes you get away by dropping a bomb on your opponent and changing the media's focus. In a case like this, they needed to hit the media hard that day. A press conference, or at least a statement, with the family gathered around, on their front lawn in full view of cameras would have gone a long way to controlling the narrative. If Jim Bob could have shown contrition, if one of the molested daughters had tearfully said that this was painful but she forgave her brother for what he did a decade ago, the scent of blood in the water would have dissipated somewhat.
Two statements on Facebook wasn't the right move. That was never the right move. The Duggars seem to have thought that these statements -- which only address Josh, not his sisters -- would put the story to bed. They don't understand, outside their "bubble," why people are still upset.
What's especially puzzling is that the Duggars didn't have a response plan ready to go when the story surfaced. They knew what Josh had done; they were there to witness it. They knew that people outside the family knew; when the police investigated after the Oprah incident, that should have tipped them off that this was an issue. This sounds breathtakingly cynical, but their failure to plan for the day that Josh's secret was exposed to the world has cost them the money and fame that 19 Kids has brought them.
This is why I think the Megyn Kelly interview will be a disaster for them. The damage is already done. Jim Bob will say things about "forgiveness," Michelle will tear up. If their goal is to save 19 Kids (or the rumored spin-off, which smells like an attempt to ditch Josh), platitudes about Jesus and forgiveness won't cut it with a public who's disturbed by this story. What they fail to understand is that every time people see the daughters, they will see sexual abuse victims. What they fail to understand is that every time people see Jim Bob and Michelle, they will see two people who harbored a sexual predator and shielded him from the law -- and they will see two people who failed to protect their daughters or get them the help and counseling they needed.
19 Kids, in whatever guise, is unsalvageable now. A softball interview with Megyn Kelly won't change that. The Duggars bungled their initial response, and the story festered and grew out their control. The story is out of their hands now.
I don't blame Frederick or other PR firms for not handling the Duggars in this case, not when the Duggars are so clearly unable to help themselves.
Tooooo true unfortunately....agree completely
DeleteActually, I believe that they are seriously invested only in their sons because they may have the great good fortune to grow up just like Jim Bob. The girls are, clearly, second-tier. Only their reproductive organs have value.
DeleteI did read somewhere that there was another PR firm that refused to represent them.
DeletePR firms have their own reputations to consider, too.
DeleteJust a language quibble, Gryphen. Maybe "mitigate" the effects, rather than "sate." Sate means to satisfy; not sure you can satisfy effects. Love your site!
ReplyDeleteCan't quibble with Gryphen- that misuse of language was in the original article he was quoting.
DeleteGlad you mentioned it though, because it bugged me too.
Yep yep yep. Yet Michelle Duggar never missed a period in her life. Where's the people correcting her?
DeleteThe Math:
ReplyDeleteJosh was born 3/3/88
He had 5 sisters born between 88 - 02 (the year he'd turned 14 year)
By 2002 he admitted he'd molested 3 of his 5 sisters.
By 2002 his sisters' ages were between 4 -12 years (4, 9, 10, 11, 12)
For the sake of rounding and a point of reference let's say that the age of ten is the line between experimentation and molestation. Josh "had" molested his sisters between the ages of 0 - 8 years.)
Maybe I have an over-active imagination, but one of the little Duggar girls has both hands under her big brother and one seems to be under his butt. Rather strange. This group is one big messed-up family. Anytime you parent with extremes (too much touchy-feeley, too much discipline, no discipline, too much religion, obvious ignorance and lack of tolerance, etc.) something bad is bound to happen. The parents are, simply, creepy. They should not be a source of information of entertainment. They are just sad.
ReplyDelete4:54 I was just looking at the photo and that was the first thing I saw. How creepy that they would include that in their publicity photo. Shows how little awareness they have about inappropriate touching (and TLC, who presumably took and released the photo).
ReplyDeleteI fervently hope that the young boy being touched (innocently) by his little sister doesn't start to get ideas that it is all right to return the favor. I just doubt these many, many children get much individual attention at all. It just breaks my heart to look at these innocents. If they are all destined for a life like their ignorant parents, they deserve our pity. Sure, the Duggars have made $$$ but who anywhere will respect them (expect for the ultra-crazies) any more? I am shocked, simply shocked, that Sarah Palin with her non-existent ethics (sic) has not chimed in much.
DeleteI'm wondering if Michelle is in menopause yet?
DeleteBecause I'll bet Jim Bob is just banging away, praying she'll get pregnant so the announcement can deflect the attention from Josh.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they announced it anyway and she had a convenient "miscarriage" later to hide the fact she was never pregnant. She's had miscarriages before so no one would question it.
Would also be leverage for them to try to convince TLC to continue their show. "20 kids and counting" has such a nice ring to it, dontcha know also too.
off topic
ReplyDeleteDaily WTF!
Dennis Hastert Reportedly Tells Associates 'I Am A Victim, Too'
"Embattled former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) reportedly told friends that he was a "victim" in the scandal involving his alleged agreement to pay $3.5 million in hush money to an individual he had reportedly sexually abused, Chicago TV station WBBM reported."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/dennis-hastert-im-a-victim-too
Dennis Hasturd, Jim Boob Duggar, Josh Duggar, lots of "victims".