One would hope. But, man, we have sure seen Ted Cruz throw himself under the bus lately. The run to Mexico during a crisis and throw his own daughters under the bus comes to mind.

Right now? Firewood. We can't transport firewood across county lines in Michigan due to an invasive insect species. The state park is getting $7.50 for a tiny bundle of wood! We did find someone down the road selling bundles 3 times that size for $10. But really, we are not talking quality oak or maple here. Junk wood that burns fast. So the family campfire has been pricey. At home, some types of produce have gone through the roof if being transported from another state. We have been focusing on local crops and greenhouse/hydroponics. Asparagus, butter lettuce and other greens, hothouse tomatoes, mushrooms, peas, etc. Michigan cherries will be coming on soon, and the family loves them so we will buy a lot. My raised bed garden goes in soon. Basil, garlic, broccoli, eggplant, bell peppers, pole beans (just a few due to lack of room), grape tomatoes, romas, and butter lettuce. I will be glad to offset the grocery bill with homegrown salads. I will probably take the time to do you-pick strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and peaches this summer. Usually I don't fuss, but the foundation that sponsors the Fine Arts program I direct is pulling funding due to record low donations during the pandemic so I am out of a job as of the end of this week (using my vacation up at the moment) so I will have the time. I will get the dehydrator going and they will have dried fruit to snack on this fall and winter as well as red pepper and grape tomatoes for salad toppings and soups/stews. We currently do not have any building projects going I am not sure about lumber. Car prices are just nuts though especially on used cars.

I think one of the biggest problems in terms of keeping him incarcerated awaiting trial, is that Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee are best buddies with the family, and Mike in particular has very big ties to ATI, very big ties. I do believe they will intervene and use their influence on his behalf unless they suddenly decide that his charges are a bridge too far for them politically, and they pull the fair weather friend routine. I may post next week a bit more about my experiences with ATI. However, I am currently on vacation, camping with my family and really enjoying myself. Contemplating this isn't relaxing for me. But I didn't want everyone to think I posted and just ran off. We have had this camping trip planned for three months.

We had friends who took long, all day type, bike rides. They had two golden labs, one old, one young. The young one loved to run, and could keep up so long as they took frequent breaks. But the older one who had done it for years, but eventually had to be left behind. We would keep the pup for them, but talk about a seriously depressed pet to be left behind. He would not eat or drink the whole time. When they do their last overnight, we had to take him to the vet for IV hydration. So, they bought one of those tow along kid things, popped him in it, and began taking him again. Happy dog. So I think of the stroller as the same kind of thing.

Oh, and I forgot to add the purity ball stuff. Now maybe I am just sensitive and all, but when a girl is dressed up in a mock wedding gown and bundled off to "marry daddy" in a ceremony in which she - as soon as she gets her first period - pledges her virginity to her father until he allows her to get married, and then there is a reception, and wedding photos, I think some bad things happen to her brain, daddy's brain, and any brothers' brains who are old enough to pay attention to this. Her is just one of many pics of a "couple"/father -daughter at a purity ball event. Call me judgmental, but I think it is downright puke worthy! Nope, couldn't leave the photo up. It is just too damn creepy! Whoever that girl is, it is just gross that her wedding photo with her father looking like he just could not wait for the wedding night, all over the internet is beyond the pale. If you Google, purity ball wedding photos, you can see a bunch. I just couldn't leave it here. Ugh.

You are kind. My husband brought me a piece of chocolate. He knows that when the charges became public, I lost it for a bit. It is exactly what I expected, but yet hoped I was wrong. I see pictures of those dear children's faces on media, and just want to rip Josh, Jim bob, and Michelle's faces off. I have zero sympathy for Anna. I did after Ashley Madison. But her brother offered her a way out, and the finances to do it, and she stayed. Now this. At some point, we have to stop coddling the enablers. I still suffer guilt that I did not protect my little sister enough, and my family's exposure was less than a year prior to the school, my semester at the school, and some residual crap afterward. But the damage was done. I will not, out of respect for myself sister, detail her sufferings here.

Hard hat Seasider, hard hat! 😄

Mercy, I tried again. Same message. I am kind of emotional worn out now after typing it all out twice so it might be a few days before I try again.

I totally agree with Tanaqui. And more research is needed for sure! I will go one further about ATI. It isn't just a cult, and it isn't just a fertility cult. It is a sex cult, and abusive sex is okay. So marriage exists simply for men to have sex, whatever kind of sex they want, whenever they want it, even if she does not consent - which is not a thing in ATI/ILBP because women and children are allowed no bodily autonomy or agency - and as abusive as they want it. Now will the men openly admit to rape, torture, unlawful restraint, etc.? No. They are well aware of the fact that this is illegal, and the truth could get their butts in hot water. But, it is also not discouraged. Doug Wilson of Moscow Idaho and Christchurch fame also runs a sex cult. He is not ATI - because that ego of his was not going to follow some other dude's ideas - but a ton of what he requires of his followers is the same. Back in 2014/15, can't remember what year exactly, some of us posted here screen shots of a blogpost he wrote about marital sex and in it, he advocated rape saying that most women fantasize about being raped and secretly love it. This is the guy who defended a child rapist with more than thirty victims, paid for his legal defense, got some p.o.s. D.A. to let him plea it down to a single count, and then when the slime got out of jail after a few months, arranged a marriage to a young woman in his church so the pedo would have someone to have legal sex with. The pedo and his wife went on to have a child that he molested as an infant. Google Steven Sitler and Doug Wilson. Many articles out there detailing the facts of the case. Wilson still defends Sitler, and believes he has a right to the child. This stuff is so sick, my mind can't make it up. So in this kind of cult world, I kind of think they almost make pedophiles. I really do. There is this insane obsession with a man getting his virgin, but no actual sex education. Puberty sets in, sex feelings happen, night time emissions, the stuff that really should be talked about is not talked about, marry them off young is the mantra, so youth is worshipped in light of sex, boys are taught that they were created by god without self control, therefore girls are the temptresses because Eve, girls are sexualized and objectified as little girls, modesty rules and teaching about being a natural sin temptation just for being born female begins at age five, boys and even husbands are not to be in the same room when a baby is having a diaper change because that could cause a temptation, and voila, the cult has created a mindset that children, even babies, are sexual, that it is normal to be sexually tempted by the sight of their bodies, and it isn't the poor boys' faults that their minds are in the gutter. Sexual arousal happens, there is no functionally normal person to talk to about it due to homeschooling in order to keep sheltered is widely practiced, and on Sundays, the maniac in the pulpit says the same b.s. I don't know how all pedophiles end up pedophiles. I do believe that ATI and other sex cults/purity cults create them.

Mercy, I tried to respond to this in a pm. I didn't want to jump in and say more here, openly in the forum. So I was going to give you some personal details about my journey because you are a sweetheart person whom I know would keep it confidential, but it said you couldn't receive messages. I am going to guess maybe your mailbox is full.

Yikes! Just read the article. Uncontrolled reentry, even in model rocketry, is not good at all!

Historically, yes. The feds like to spend money and once they propose to do it, it is rarely rolled back. I'd rather the debt get used to fund help for families than more weapons. But then, so don't see this as unprudent choices so since we don't have the same worldview on these types of issues, we are not likely to agree either.

For Journey of the Heart camp, you would be correct. For troubled youth retraining, this is incorrect. Children younger than that are sent. It is done in a different building with mostly paid staff or older ( 16+) interns. If you need to know more, see the Indianapolis Star series on the IBLP youth center there. It is evil. The camp is kind of more standard Christian camp fare. The detention for wayward kids is NOT. ATI began in the 70's. There are two/three generations of survivors now depending on how you count it. I guess for me it is disheartening to see everyone immediately jump to Anna's rights and not give a crap about the children's rights. I have been sitting here crying, hands shaking, knowing what is ahead for her. I feel sick to my stomach. I have been on the receiving end of their evil. And I was only subjected to it for a school semester. I won't come back here again to try to convince you of how evil those sons of b$itches are. I tried to warn people years ago, and it was not well received. I posted pages of screen shots of IBLP materials and their "newsletters" to no good end. But let me describe what ATI/IBLP says must be done when a paedophile is found their midst. The victims must be found and must, on pain of physical beating, food and water withheld, sleep deprivation, beg forgiveness of the predator for being a temptation if they are children of the cult. You read that correctly. They have to beg for forgiveness of the predator for leading the predator to sin. Now let me tell you about what is going to likely happen to little McKenzie. Even if daddy did not molest her, because he was sexually attracted to children that means according to their beliefs he had a temptation, that means some child is at fault for his feelings. They will say it was sin for him to act out on his feelings, but that it is a child or children's fault that he was "lead to sin". Who the hell do you think ATI is going to blame for a child of their poster family going so damn far off the rails? Definitely his kids. Who do you think is going to be on the worst end of that effing stick? McKenzie. Yes, the Northwoods Conference Center in Watersmeet, MI has been turned in, numerous times with complaints from people in town, concerns from local citizens. This has been going on for decades. We have not had a single LEO, single agency willing to take on an organization with more than 150 million in assets and some bastard quality lawyers to fight their battles nor to be seen " persecuting" a religious group. The only successful action taken was by the city of Flint, MI and Genessee County who kept Bill Gothard from starting another youth retraining center there in the early 90's. Zoning. He was stupid enough to sink money into a property without finding out if it could be zoned for a youth detention center and religious camp. I was relieved beyond words when his project could not go forward. Nome of this isn't news. It has been around for multiple deacdes and is common knowledge among social workers and LEO's. The state is unwilling to be made out as the bad guys picking on those poor little Christians. The cycle just keeps repeating itself. And the victims keep piling up. But seriously, when has this country ever truly given a damn about the victims of stuff like this? It is why I 100% support a Bill of Rights for children. Kids are not property, they are people too. As for her custody rights, by state law, yes she has custody of those kids. Does this mean one fig to JBob and company? No it does not. Does she believe she has the right to make decisions for her children? Likely not because she didn't just marry into it, she was raised in it. The "Umbrella of Authority" as is taught in ATI, is that females have no agency of their own. God made them weaker vessels and man to be in charge of them, and at no time is a female to be outside ATI male control or make decisions. So female children are subordinate to their fathers until marriage when this responsibility is handed to their husband, or if they do not marry, always. If father dies, then there two ways this goes. First, it falls to a brother of age who becomes responsible for his mother and minor siblings. If there is no adult male brother, it can go to a grandfather or an uncle, even a cousin. At no time can it go to a male outside ATI. In the case of a widowed woman or one in jail or otherwise absent, it goes to the father in law if alive AND there are children because kids are the property of the male line. Thus, while she may retain physical custody of them, Jbob has literal custody, and Anna cannot defy his choices for the children unless she is willing to leave the cult. Micromanaging female life is the norm. Men are supposed to approve their females' hair styles, clothing, make up colors, choice of musical instruments if allowed instruction, books and other reading material, daily schedules, friends and acquaintances, choose his daughters' spouses, limit their education, and even control how much they eat and when, right down to not allowing tampons because girls who use tampons are not virgins anymore. Yes this is the crap they believe along with the presence of cabbage patch dolls cause women to have childbirth problems among other ATI maternity care dangerous notions. So I stand by my opinion. If Anna does not leave that cult very soon, she does not deserve to have custody of her children and the state should step in. Chances are they will do exactly not one damn thing about it because Jbob is best buds with Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee. So sometime in the coming weeks I want all of you that think "poor poor Anna" to think for a minute about the little girl being told that her daddy is going to jail because she tempted him to think about children sexually and the fact that this cult forces women and children to beg forgiveness and does so with many of the same methods the Pearls use to torture children into compliance. And don't think these p.o.s's aren't capable of doing that to a grandchild. Michele is the evil slime bag who blanket trained her babies to be afraid to crawl by beating them on the backs of their legs with flexible rulers. Documented here years ago on the old board. Screenshots taken of her bragging about it in an online mommy forum and telling moms where to buy those flexible rulers on sale. If she is gleeful to do that to a baby, it staggers the imagination what she and that monster she is married to will do to an older child, and Anna as ZERO say in it unless she is willing to leave. The danger to those children is so very real. As a survivor of this damn cult, I am telling you not to be so naive about what is going to happen to Josh's kids.

Disagree. She is in a sex cult. ATI had been identified as such. She knows he molested five of his sisters, one of his cousins, met with prostitutes, and beat one up. Now this. She deserves to lose her children. She stayed, and due to the religious beliefs of headship, the children are now under the authority of Jim bob not their mother. He gets to decide what happened to him. He sent his own molested daughters to the North woods Center here in Michigan for the "moral vaccination" when they were molested by their brother. What the heck do you think is going to happen to them now? Especially the oldest child, a daughter, who is old enough for the ATI/IBLP re-training? And I do not believe for one single instant that Mary Kay Latourneau's children should have been allowed any contact with her. Children are not property. They deserve better, and it is a legitimate function of society to try to help them and protect them if possible. Anna had to suffer whatever consequences the government puts on her. Seriously, you think MKL deserved to keep her kids? Wow. I doubt then that you believe in children's rights, which I do, so we simply do not even have a similar world view.

For anyone who wants to know what a moral vaccination is in ATI, I did describe it above. Please do not read the post if you are super sensitive to descriptions of brain washing techniques. I kept it pretty vague for the sake of a public board, but I know if can be triggering. Yet, it also explains why some of us feel so strongly about the children being taken away.

Reporting for my daughter. 2nd dose of Pfizer yesterday. Super duper fatigue, a little dizzy, and very headachy. No fever or chills, no other immune response so far. My precious five year old grandson keeps trying to take her popsicles because that is what he gets when he is sick and feverish. It is the cutest thing, and warms my heart! Mama just wants to sleep, please.

No tips, but like the kid in the class that wants attention, I have my hand I the air bouncing up and down, "Teacher, I wanna go! I wanna go! I wanna go!!!" 😁

Not really. Historically, once one faction of our government has proposed debt spending for x,y, and z, another faction has proposed "if we don't spend it there, we will spend it here", and everyone seems to think that is a good idea. Sigh.

And that is what scares me. The courts are simply too naive about the ATI cult. What happens next, especially to the oldest child if she has been molested by her father, does not even bear thinking about! It gets worse from here, not better.

No. The chances of JB, Michelle, and Anna being allowed access is too great. The pressure on Jill would be so strong, and she is the only one likely to try to stand up to it. Jinger is still very connected to the family. Jessa is knee deep in the mess.

You don't want to know. So don't read any further if you are sensitive. At ATI re-training camps and centers (Watersmeet, MI and Indianapolis, IN), this involves brainwashing by torture to produce the desired attitude and behavior. Methods used: Withholding of food and water Sentenced to stand on tiptoes on a chair with an egg or tomato under the heels and if the item is smashed when no on is looking, they know the person took a break, then switch their back or legs, and start again. Kneeling at an altar for hours on end withholding bathroom privileges - ask me how I know. I peed on a carpeted altar for funsies after being caught with a book of Shakespeare plays and sonnets. Allowing others to mock and throw things at the offender for hours. Going through an "exorcism" and I just can't describe that here on a public board. Hard labor on bread and water rations. Restraints until confession is obtained. Once the confession is obtained and penance is assigned and completed - usually very long terms of hard labor on slightly better than bread and water rations, oat meal and a little vegetables and fruit are added, the soul is vaccinated against ever allowing such a thing to happen again, and now the person is a mighty, spiritual warrior for god because what didn't kill you made you stronger. There is more, but that is all anyone here needs to know. My concern for the eldest child of Anna and Josh is that if he molested her, she is just me enough now to be sent to the Michigan facility for "counseling and soul vaccination". It is of life and death importantance she is removed from Anna's care. Headship, in the absence of Josh, defaults to JB, and JB can sentence that child to this.

Anna's name is not likely on anything. ATI, when followed strictly as this family does, is adamantly opposed to any money or asset control by females, and does not recognize adult female rights to make any decisions. It is medieval with the gloss of modernity. And it is entirely possible since the raid that JB took everything that he thought he could protect out of Josh's name in order to protect as many assets as possible. I truly believe the children should be taken away from their mother. I know that may sound horrible to many of you, but I have an insider's view of this cult, my parents having once unwittingly enrolled me at 14 in an ATI "Christian" school without knowing what it was about, and learning that lesson the hard way. There is a very strong chance he molested his own children, and she would not only be encouraged to cover it up ala Ma and Pa Duggar the first time around with him, and she will be blamed for his perversion, possibly even physically beaten herself because that is also part of ATI "spanking" wayward women. The children will not get help. They apparently new after the raid that he was going to go down for some sort of federal charges, and she stayed. She stayed after Ashley Madison. She stayed after they admitted he was a serial child molester. She is herself brain washed in the cult, but that means she simply cannot be trusted with the welfare of her children. They need to be taken into protective custody, and due to the nature of the cult, should not be placed with any Duggar relatives. Sad to say this is definitely one of those times when I am literally rooting for foster care for her children. If and only if, she goes to approved secular therapy, completes parenting classes, leaves the Duggar compound, enrolls in job training or community college, meets regularly with her assigned social workers, maintains a zero contact the Duggar family, and agrees to whatever supervision the court requires, then and only then does she get them back.

This. My job as director of a community fine arts program is toast. I am totally down with private programs requiring proof of vaccine for participation and attendance, and then getting back to business.

Yes. And in ATI materials they also caution mothers that fathers should not participate in potty training because that is an area of temptation, and should the child be molested, again mom's fault for not making husband stay away from the potty training. It is one whacked out, messed up, sex cult.

Agreed. Computers. It often comes down to computers and even if they get seized for one thing like financial shenanigans, they often reveal other things. I have seen this happen so many times, like the local police officer whose home computer got seized because of a suspected illegal financial dealing, and evealed illegal arms dealing. Bye bye officer, Monopoly has sent you to jail, and you don't collect $200.