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]
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

Monthly Archives

Scientology loses a whale: Major donor Michael Baybak dead at 77

[Michael Baybak in 2014]

The Church of Scientology has lost one of its all-time biggest donors, businessman Michael Baybak, who died last week at []

ADVERTISEMENT

Joy Villa’s Scientologist husband shamed into dropping elephant skin bags from luxury line

[Thorsten von Overgaard and the photo dropped from his site]

The photography website PetaPixel is reporting that Thorsten von Overgaard, a wealthy Danish photographer, got into hot water with his fellow camera enthusiasts when he offered super-luxury camera bags made not only of alligator skin but also elephant []

Florida attempts sensible change to mental health law — so Scientology goes on attack

[CCHR Florida President Diane Stein]

Rod Keller keeps an eye on Scientology various front groups for us, and once again he’s got the drop on []

Scientology wastes no time making a move on the new president, but where does Trump stand?

[Then-candidate Donald Trump and Trish Duggan, during the campaign]

Back in August, we pointed out that while many people have noted similarities between Donald Trump and L. Ron Hubbard, at least in their personal styles (something we’ve acknowledged as well), we hadn’t really seen any substantial connections between the Republican candidate and the Church of Scientology []

Vote for Xenu! Scientologists are looking to L. Ron Hubbard for advice on the coming election

 Several weeks ago, we pointed out that a lot of observers are making comparisons between Donald Trump and L. Ron Hubbard. And while we understood why, we pointed out that it was Hillary Clinton who would actually bring more Scientology baggage with her to the White House. Now, Rod Keller, who keeps an eye on []

Trump is drawing comparisons to L. Ron, but will Hillary favor Scientology as much as Bill did?

[Image by DonkeyHotey]

We hear it all the time. Doesn’t Donald Trump remind you of L. Ron []

Louisiana congressman posts Narconon pic, then yanks it after we point out Scientology link

 Scientology and its front groups work very hard to ensnare unsuspecting local officials for photo opportunities. We see a lot of local law enforcement officers, city council members, and even some state representatives get corralled for Scientology PR. But it’s really something when Scientology manages to snag a state attorney general or a member of []

Scientology’s day care from hell: The scandal the church managed to keep hidden — until now

Written by Tony Ortega | Illustrations by Chad Essley

 Ellen was driving back from an outing in San Diego with her daughter when she got the call. [“Ellen” is not her real name, but this account is exactly how she told it to us.]

It was Julian, an ethics officer at Scientology’s “org” in Los Angeles. Julian []

Rathbun: ‘Scientology never endorsed anyone where there wasn’t a clear self-interest’

Pam Bondi, Florida AG

On Sunday, we broke the news that Scientologists were holding a campaign fundraiser for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is running for re-election this year.

One of our tipsters had forwarded to us a mailer that was not meant to be spread outside the church, showing that several high-level Scientologists []

Scientology Sunday Funnies: The Nancy Cartwright freak-out edition

Watch out! Nancy Cartwright is having some kind of naval restim and she’s reaching for your wallet!

Yes, it’s time for another wacky collection of Scientology’s latest mailers and fliers as the church tries desperately to find a new strategy to get members to actually come to events and open up a few more credit cards []