This is a recent tweet from Freedom magazine. The level of bald-faced lies is breathtaking. 1.5 million volunteers? Where? I can only assume they now count everyone in the Red Cross wordlwide because a Volunteer Minister in Manila had a photo taken with the local Red Cross coordinator. Scientology could hardly scrape together 1.5 million BT's if they rounded up their 6500 OT's and had them pool their resources. This is simply absurd. And apparently they say it with a straight face. Seeing this, I just had to click on their link to "get the story." So, here is their … [Read more...]
Scientology’s Latest Lie About Me
While there have been many, many lies propagated by scientology about me, it still surprises me sometimes when they offer up new ones. This appeared a few days ago on my daughter's blog (though she is just the name and face that is used -- this garbage is written by the same people that churn out the drivel that appears on the STAND League and Freedom smear sites). The idea that I committed some grievous bodily harm on my ex-wife when she and 6 others stalked and accosted me in a doctors parking lot in 2010 has been thoroughly debunked on this blog (see Mike Rinder: "Lady Killer") … [Read more...]
The Clearwater PR Offensive
Immediately following the revelations in the recent Tampa Bay Times article by Tracey McManus, scientology launched their version of a campaign to convince the citizens of Clearwater they are in fact good for the city. They distributed Freedom magazines to people's doors in the dead of night to try to persuade them the reason downtown Clearwater looks like the set for the latest installment of the Night of The Living Dead movies is not because they bought it up and leave most of the properties empty or massively underutilized, it is because the big bad meanies at the Tampa Bay … [Read more...]
CNN on Clearwater & More from the Tampa Bay Times
Earlier today I chatted briefly with Michael Smerconish on CNN. Unfortunately, there is no embed code for the video so you have to click HERE to watch it. It was a VERY short piece, not really enough time to explain such complex issues, but it is good to see national media paying some attention to this issue. Hopefully more media outlets than just the Tampa Bay Times will want to dig in to this. Tracey McManus also published a new story concerning community reaction to middle-of-the-night distribution of Freedom magazines. As usual, the glossy hype of scientology's PR effort does nothing … [Read more...]
Scientology BS Grows Deeper
Scientology had this 116 page "rebuttal" magazine ready to distribute in Clearwater on Sunday immediately after the Tampa Bay Times bombshell dropped. It had been prepared and printed well in advance, with staged photo shoots and 116 pages of PR fluffery and outright bs ready to drop without the inconvenience of having read the article. In fact, it arrived in Clearwater mailboxes Monday morning, so it was mailed even before the article was published. A large percentage of the magazine consists of flowery pages of "I am a Scientologist" stuff. This is basically a rehash of what is shown … [Read more...]