[Dave Stokes and his family, before disconnection]

On January 4, Skip Young wrote for us an account of his attempt to reconnect with the grown daughters who have disconnected from him after he left Scientology. Last week we published one response we received after Skip’s piece, and that was Phil Jones writing about his own attempts [...]

[Xenu? Never heard of him.]

We’re premiering another video by the “Reckless Ben” team today, their fifth installment of short films about the infiltration of Scientology they recently pulled off.

This time, they’re trolling their Scientology auditor by asking her about Xenu (the galactic overlord Scientologists are told about in the advanced auditing level of Operating Thetan [...]

 Sonya Adelaide Bianchi Hulswit, a woman L. Ron Hubbard presented at an August 1950 presentation at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles as the first example of a Scientology “Clear,” died last night in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her son Chris Hulswit tells us that she was 92.

In December 2018, we reported that we’d located her [...]

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

[Regarding this story: ‘Take her out’: Recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired]

A few things to keep in mind and reasons this is significant:

— Trump claims to not know Lev Parnas yet here he is [...]

[Baden and Epstein]

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

[Regarding this story: Why You Might Not Want to Believe Michael Baden, Celebrity Pathologist, on Epstein’s Death]

Seeing as Medical-Examiner-to-the-Stars Michael Baden is doing the TV lecture circuit this morning about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, I’ll note that Baden is [...]

[Attorney John Dowd]

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

After Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested in October, they somehow managed to secure John Dowd as their lawyer. But Dowd was also the president’s lawyer. Because Parnas and Fruman could conceivably be in conflict with Trump, Trump would [...]

[Montana’s supes]

John Redwood (a/k/a ex-JW activist Mark O’Donnell), just posted this shocking statement to his Facebook account, announcing that Montana’s Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling awarding $35 million to a woman who had been sexually abused as a child as a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses…

BREAKING NEWS:

The 2018 Montana verdict against Jehovah’s Witnesses has [...]

[Alan Dershowitz]

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

[Regarding this story: George Conway: Why Trump had to hire this legal odd couple]

I was never a Van Halen fan but nevertheless found myself wincing at a video of David Lee Roth in Las Vegas from a few weeks ago. He [...]

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[Phil Jones and his son Mike]

On Saturday, we posted Skip Young’s update about how he tried to defy Scientology disconnection by flying across the country to see his two grown daughters. It didn’t go well. We got a couple of interesting responses to that, and we wanted you to see this one today. It was [...]

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

Whatever the senate impeachment trial winds up being, it appears it will resemble a motion to dismiss more than a trial, since McConnell evidently has 51 votes for a process that won’t permit a vote on witnesses until after the two sides [...]

[Trump and Hyde]

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

Lev Parnas’ lawyer delivered a bunch of text messages and handwritten notes to Congress, this coming after a prolonged fight over whether they could be disclosed at all — Republicans had been fighting it.

After a quick review, most of [...]

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

[Regarding this story: Constitutional Crabgrass: President Trump’s Defenders Distort the Impeachment Clause]

Yesterday I spent a few paragraphs deconstructing Alan Dershowitz’s argument (which he’s expected to make next week on the Senate floor) that “high crimes and misdemeanors” requires “criminal-like conduct,” whatever that’s [...]

 Scientology has two main awards ceremonies per year. Donors to the IAS draw attention for the huge trophies awarded at an October event at Saint Hill in East Grinstead, England that mirror their millions in donations that keep the organization going. The other awards are made during the New Year’s event in Los Angeles where [...]

[Cedric and Biscuit]

For the second time, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Chrissie Carnell Bixler are burying a dog whose death they blame on a Church of Scientology harassment campaign.

The rock singer (Mars Volta, At The Drive In) posted an image to his Instagram account last night of ground beef that had been laced with rat poison and [...]

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

In 2012-13, Donald Trump repeatedly signaled his cynical belief that starting a war with Iran was a smart strategy available to President Obama to raise his poll numbers and reelection chances.

 Advertisement (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); On one hand that’s in [...]

 In the second week of January, Cheryl Straffon of the Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN) announced that the megalithic structure Mulfra Quoit had been marred by graffiti, which should wash off, but will require professional restorers to work carefully, as this is a registered historic site.

CASPN looks in on sites about monthly, to [...]

 A library book due in 1980 was returned a couple of weeks ago.

This sort of thing happens a few times a year, and this particular case was not a recent record. Last May the Donegal County library in Ireland received back The White Owl, checked out in 1937 (82 years overdue).

The all-time record is a [...]

[California’s majestic sequoias are dying early]

“Lazarus” is the name given to an iconic specimen of giant sequoia, in the Giant Forest located in Sequoia National Park. These magnificent trees can reach 300 feet (90 meters) during a lifespan that can exceed 3,000 years, and are famously resistant to droughts and fires. Lazarus,more than 2,000 years [...]

[Three alleged white supremacists picked up in northern Georgia]

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

The FBI arrested six white supremacists (three who entered the country illegally from Canada) in advance of a planned gun rally in Virginia where the FBI claims that a few members planned to “open [...]

[Maxwell Johnson, photo: CBC/Jeff Houstey]

Maxwell Johnson is a member of the Heiltsuk nation on the central coast of British Columbia. From time immemorial the Heiltsuk have set up frames containing kelp fronds in the sea, to attract herring to lay their eggs there, and they relish this caviar-like delicacy.

The market for “spawn on kelp” [...]

 The Underground Bunker has learned that 1970s Scientology spymaster Henning Heldt, the target of one of the largest raids in FBI history, died Sunday of cancer. He was 74.

When the FBI raided Scientology on July 8, 1977 in Washington DC and Los Angeles, one of its main targets was Henning Heldt’s office on the sixth [...]

[Bobette Riales and the Hollywood Celebrity Centre]

Back on December 13, we broke the news that Scientology was planning to force some of the former Scientologists suing Danny Masterson into “religious arbitration” as a way of killing their lawsuit.

“This is the purpose of Scientology’s ‘Fair Game’ policy, to obstruct justice, to waste the court’s time, [...]

[Michael, left and Ben enlighten us about Scientology]

Who are these guys? That was one of the reactions we had when we saw the dynamite first two videos put out by a couple of young infiltrators who have brought out some of the most fascinating (and hilarious) undercover video from inside Scientology in a long time.

It [...]

 A team of astronomers has been comparing sky surveys done decades apart and keeps finding examples of stars that have seemingly disappeared.

Press reports have naturally jumped on the findings with exotic theories, such as aliens enclosing the stars with Dyson spheres, but the scientific paper, while mentioning such possibilities, concentrates on the phenomenon of “red [...]

[David Miscavige]

The national legal team suing Scientology in three important lawsuits has asked a Miami court for more time — up to May 15, if necessary — because they still haven’t located David Miscavige to serve notice to the Scientology leader in a suit alleging a cover-up of child sexual abuse. The request was granted [...]

[Valerie Haney]

On January 30 there’s going to be a huge early showdown for the major lawsuits filed against the Church of Scientology last summer. On that date, Scientology is going to try to convince Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard J. Burdge Jr. that Valerie Haney’s lawsuit should be put on ice so she can [...]

[Come and get me]

Last summer, a powerful national legal team filed three lawsuits against the Church of Scientology and its leader David Miscavige on behalf of seven people who say they were victimized by the church. One of them alleges she was held against her will for years at a secretive Scientology compound, five others [...]

[Graham Berry shares some thoughts on Valerie Haney’s lawsuit]

We’re still getting our feet back under us after a festive holiday, but we thought we might take a look at the current status of the lawsuits facing the Church of Scientology as we start 2020.

In particular, we have a new document in the Valerie Haney lawsuit, [...]

[Sunny Pereira, helping you onto your OT levels.]

While you’re in Scientology, everything related to helping the organization achieve its goals is so important, nothing else is. As a member of the Sea Org, you’re always in an emergency situation, handling one top-priority last-minute must-complete crisis after another, around the clock and with your eternity and [...]

 We’re premiering another video by the “Reckless Ben” team today, their fourth installment of short films about the infiltration of Scientology they recently pulled off.

Ben Schneider, 24, and his friend Michael Fortner, 23, moved from Ohio to Los Angeles where Ben was pursuing opportunities as a professional slackliner. By chance, they happened to rent a [...]