FOLLOW ME ON
Daily Notifications
Sign up for free emails to receive the feature story every morning in your inbox at tonyortega.substack.com

Categories

The unanticipated pandemic benefit: Nutty Scientology online videos

 One of the most surprising results of the pandemic and subsequent lockdown has been Scientology’s efforts to put more of its activities on video and online, and in recent weeks we’ve brought you the very strange results of that change. Today, we have two more leaked Scientology videos, this time from Down Under. []

ADVERTISEMENT

Scientology mega-donor ABCMouse family is more complicated than we realized

[Seeing double: ‘Veronica Mars’ actor Jason Dohring is flanked by his brothers Rob (right) and Jon.]

A commenter alerted us to a pretty interesting situation that we thought deserved its own post. You know that for years we’ve kept an eye on Doug Dohring and his education software empire, which runs the hugely profitable subscription service []

Leave it to Trump to breathe life into the most anachronistic corner of the Constitution

 Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

[Regarding this story: DC mayor Muriel Bowser takes on Trump, sparks Third Amendment debate with call to remove troops from capital]

Leave it to Trump to breathe life into perhaps the most anachronistic corner of the []

Year after taping ‘Scientology & the Aftermath,’ Victoria Locke is still waiting for justice

 A year ago, Victoria Locke was one of several victims of sexual assault who taped a special episode of ‘Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath’ which was titled ‘Waiting for []

Which of the Masterson brothers profited from their Scientology stepdad’s Ponzi scheme?

[Danny, Christopher, and Jordan Masterson: Which one got the check for $50,103.25?]

Every few months we hear that the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office is about to make a decision whether to charge Scientology celebrity Danny Masterson after seven women came forward to the LAPD with rape allegations against the That ’70s Show actor. It’s been []

Why black-white criminal justice inequality persists today? Look at Levittown.

 Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

There’s no shortage of articles about the unequal treatment African-Americans receive from the criminal justice system, and even there the answers run deeper than inherent bias by officers. People’s attitudes matter a great deal, but African-Americans still face institutional and policy barriers, []

Kirstie Alley lets her Scientology hang out and fans react with predictable hilarity

 Kirstie Alley is an oversharer on Twitter, and we try to not to get too caught up in her online drama. She’s crass and comical, and on occasion we see our readers giving her some pretty clever comebacks. But for the most part she merits little more than an eyeroll. []

Steve Cannane took Scientology’s line, says unrepentant ‘Deep Sleep’ doctor

[Dr. John Gill in 1989, photo by Sydney Morning Herald]

On Saturday we told you that a trial was about to start in Australia that would never happen in the United States, and the first couple of days of testimony in the defamation case against journalist Steve Cannane certainly drove home that []

Hard to imagine a president less suited to calm this country at this particular moment

 Attorney Scott Pilutik wrestles with the news of the day, from a lawyerly perspective…

I think there were two moments that played a big role in the protests gaining the momentum they did, both occurring Friday. One was when Hennepin County declined to charge the other four officers alongside Derek Chauvin. The other was Trump’s inciting []

Boarded up and shut down, Scientology struggles to stay relevant in uncertain times

 An Underground Bunker reader sent us a couple of snapshots they took yesterday in Pasadena, where Scientology workers were busy putting up plywood to protect the Ideal Org’s large plate glass []