Recent content by Karen#1

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: In a Los Angeles courtroom this week, Superior Court Judge Kevin Brazile heard from the Church of Scientology that Valerie Haney’s “religious arbitration” is still not completed, and so he scheduled another hearing for March 25. Valerie, who first filed her lawsuit...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: In case you missed it during our recent HowdyCon adventures, we managed to keep an eye on what’s been going on in Clearwater, Florida and the fight there over a downtown street that Scientology wants for its L. Ron Hubbard Hall project. Friday morning, we posted a...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: A powerful new book by author and trans activist Josephine Riesman makes the case that you can’t understand the life and career of the musician Beck without understanding his involvement in — and abuse by — the Church of Scientology. The Last Temptation of Beck is set...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: [Bobby Jr, and Trish Duggan with Trump during his 2016 campaign] In today’s New York Times blockbuster investigation of how the Trump administration has bankrupted the Kennedy Center, there’s a photo of some bad wall art that’s getting a lot of attention. In an annex...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: The Underground Bunker held its first HowdyCon convention since 2019 this weekend in New London, Connecticut. And during yesterday’s talks, Claire Headley gave us a welcome surprise. She and husband Marc Headley are well known for the dramatic escapes they made in 2005...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: [Willie and Phil Jones looking adorable last night at the speakeasy] Some of the things that went on last night at HowdyCon 2026 in New London, Connecticut, as we opened our shindig with pizza and drinks at a speakeasy and with many folks wearing 20s garb, just for...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: The Underground Bunker is resurrecting HowdyCon, the set of conventions it held from 2016 to 2019, and today it begins in New London, Connecticut. Why New London? Because before HowdyCon started in 2016 in Cleveland, former Scientology spy Patty Moher had held a series...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: Last year, Scientology marked the 75th anniversary of the publication of Dianetics — the L. Ron Hubbard book that started everything — with a new edition and a big celebration of the 1950 milestone. The church has had less to say about Hubbard’s fortunes the following...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: One of our helpers found some photos online showing a team from Scientology’s Cincinnati Ideal Org (which is actually in Kentucky) selling copies of Dianetics at a local mall. We showed the photos to one of our readers that we knew had spent time in Scientology in...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: Should Swifties be concerned? Last night, Taylor Swift attended her husband Travis Kelce’s first home game of the 2026 NFL regular season, which the Kansas City Chiefs won 31-10 against the Denver Broncos. Travis caught three passes for 71 yards, but no touchdowns...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: Back in 2015, we were on tour for our book about Paulette Cooper, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, when one of our readers asked a question: Why were we visiting so many places to meet people? We quipped that we were testing out which city to hold an Underground Bunker...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: Thanks to the never-ending stream of slop we are all fed on our digital devices, I recently came across a video of Elena Cardone, who, along with her husband Grant Cardone, are major Scientology donors and seem to be David Miscavige favorites. The interviewer asked...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: We’ve remarked in the past that it strikes us as unusual that among the new L. Ron Hubbard shrines the Church of Scientology has opened, they have recently restored the villa in the Canary Islands where the infamous “OT 3” story was hatched. That was while Hubbard, the...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: [David Miscavige in 2001, just weeks after 9/11] On this solemn occasion, 25 years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, we remember that the Church of Scientology tried to turn the tragedy into a sales opportunity. We’re referring, of course, to church...

TONY ORTEGA Excerpt: [Jeffrey and Karen de la Carriere, and with their borzoi] We first met Jeffrey Augustine on the roof of Marty Rathbun’s house in Ingleside-by-the-bay, Texas. It was November 2012, and we had ridden down to the seaside town near Corpus Christi in a car from San Antonio...