These are strange times in the Duggar family.
Obviously, the upcoming Josh Duggar child porn trial is the biggest scandal of the moment, but in a family that size, there’s always more than one controversy happening at a time.
These days, the family is split into two factions — those who have remained loyal to Jim Bob, and those who jumped ship upon realizing he’s a psychotic freak who’s been protecting and enabling a known sexual predator for nearly 20 years.
Joseph Duggar and wife Kendra Caldwell have decided to remain on Team Jim Bob, which is an odd choice for a number of reasons.
For starters, it’s been rumored that Joe and Kendra were forced into an arranged marriage, and that they initially harbored a great deal of resentment toward their fathers for forcing them to get hitched (while Kendra was still in her teens, no less).
There’s also a lot of weirdness on Kendra’s side of the family tree:
After all, her father, Paul Caldwell, is Jim Bob’s best friend and confidant, and while we have no way of knowing if Paul has advised JB on his handling of the Josh situation, you can be sure some extremely icky conversations have taken place on that front.
Paul’s wife, Christina Caldwell, welcomed her ninth child just weeks after Kendra brought her third kid into the world, meaning daughter Brooklyn is actually older than her youngest aunt.
Of course, that’s assuming Paul and Christina are finished breeding, which is no way a safe assumption.
Have we mentioned that the Caldwells are a bit of an eccentric clan?
Anyway, the latest story about Kendra’s folks concerns some shady real estate wheelings and dealings that were reported this week by UK tabloid The Sun.
Shortly after they got married, Joe and Kendra bought a 1,540-square foot house from Jim Bob for the measly sum of $5,000.
After living in the house for a couple of years, Joe and Kendra vacated the premises so that they could take up residence in a small log cabin on Jim Bob’s property.
At that point, the (slightly) elder Caldwells moved into Joe and Kendra’s old house.
And we now know that in July, Paul and Christina bought the house from Joseph … for $10,000.
So the good news is, Joe doubled his profits when he flipped his house!
The bad news is, that was a profit of just 5 grand, and the guy is obviously neck deep in some shady real estate scheme cooked up by his dad and his father-in-law.
The Duggars have a long history of moving money and property around during times of turmoil.
One week before Josh’s arrest, for example, he and Anna bought a large tract of land and a mobile home, presumably so that he’d have less cash for the government to get its hands on.
(Taking property and shelter away from a pregnant mother of six is generally not a good look.)
The angle is less apparent with the Caldwell deal, but you can be sure this is part of some elaborate effort to hide assets and get one over on Uncle Sam.
Just more Christian charity from Jim Bob Duggar, the Tony Soprano of Arkansas!