Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He's written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology's harassment of Paulette Cooper titled 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.' He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world from an undisclosed location in an underground bunker he shares with four cats and one of them wrinkly Shar Pei dogs. Despite his super-secret security protections, you can still reach him pretty easily by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you'd like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.) [Header image courtesy John Rickard]
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Judge in Laura DeCrescenzo’s case retires, Scientology objects to his replacement

Last month, Los Angeles Supreme Court Judge Ronald Sohigian announced that he’d be retiring in April.

That’s directly affecting Laura DeCrescenzo, who went through so much last year to get her forced-abortion lawsuit against the Church of Scientology through several appeals and then a big summary judgment hearing before Sohigian in October.

Those of you who were []

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‘Mad Men’ actress Elisabeth Moss’s record in Scientology is actually easy to obtain

Today at Salon, Daniel D’Addario seized on a New York magazine profile of Elisabeth Moss, in which the Golden Globe-winning actress declined to talk about her involvement in Scientology but complained that it’s “grossly misunderstood” by the media.

D’Addario rightly chastised Moss for wanting it both ways — she criticizes people for not knowing about Scientology, []

Scientology fliers can chase away any case of the Mondays

When our tipsters saw that we were bereft of Sunday Funnies yesterday, they were good enough to send over a few new Scientology mailers and fliers as compensation.

We do love our tipsters.

Also, Karen de la Carriere has sent us another of her educational videos, which you’ll find at the end of today’s post.

So let’s take []

Video Vault: When Scientology basked in the success of giant cucumbers

Our video source is back with a new “quote video” for us today, and another fun slice of L. Ron Hubbard wisdom.

This week, we get a peek at the “Theta Clear Congress,” a series of lectures Hubbard made in 1959.

Here’s a description from Bridge Publications, which sells the lectures for $125.00: []

Jon Atack: Why it takes so long to recover from Scientology

Jon Atack is the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, one of the very best books on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. He has a new edition of the book for sale, and on Saturdays he’s helping us sift through the legends, myths, and contested facts about Scientology that tend to get hashed and []

BRAD HALSEY, 1957-2014

 On Sunday, Brad Halsey took his own life. He was []

Scientology gets the ‘America’s Book of Secrets’ treatment soon!

Hey, we’re a little under the weather today, so we need to keep this short. But we wanted to let you know about something that we’ve been keeping secret for several months.

Now that some promos have begun running on History Channel 2, we can reveal that the new season of America’s Book of Secrets is []

Larry Anderson: Scientology’s pitchman becomes a Bunker regular

In the now-it-can-be-told department: We first heard from Larry Anderson back in 2010, but it wasn’t until last year that we finally met the tall LA actor originally from Minnesota.

For Scientologists of a certain era, Larry’s image is branded into their memories from multiple viewings of the Orientation film that they were all required to []

Bruce Hines takes us through Scientology’s Original Operating Thetan Level Seven!

Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the []

John Travolta’s fun night at the Oscars

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