Fox News brings on major Scientology donor — and gets a dose of Scientologese

We want to say it right up front: The only reason that we are (cautiously) dipping our toes into something political today is that the person who brought us this story was one of our right-leaning friends, the reader and former Scientologist known to many of you as “Techie.”

We have long appreciated Techie’s near-photographic memory for his experiences in Scientology and his expert grasp of its “technology.” But some years ago, we also realized that we did not see eye-to-eye with Techie on general non-Scientology matters. Sometimes, that’s even led to some cantankerous moments between us.

But if there’s one thing we do agree on, it’s keeping a close watch on Scientology and its abuses. And so when Techie, an occasional Fox News watcher, told us how stunned he was to see Elena Cardone spouting L. Ron Hubbard jargon on Jesse Watters Primetime, we agreed with him that it was worth paying attention to.

After all, we had been very interested when Elena’s husband, Grant Cardone, was asked to speak at President Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden just a week before the election, and spouted some pretty outlandish rhetoric.

We know that some of our conservative readers were unhappy that we covered that story, but we didn’t really see that we had much of a choice: A presidential candidate had asked an OT 8 Scientologist and major church donor to speak at the culminating rally of his candidacy.

One reader asked us if we would have covered a similar story involving a Democratic politician, and we replied that of course we would, and we already had! We have written numerous stories about Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and her footsie-playing with Tom Cruise and Scientology that goes back many years. That she was a Democrat didn’t dissuade us at all.

Anyway, getting back to Elena Cardone, who, along with her husband Grant, is a major donor to Scientology (they are Diamond Laureate, which means $15 million in donations just to the IAS), and they are dedicated Trump supporters who, when the president was hit with a $355 million fraud judgment in Manhattan Supreme Court earlier this year, Elena created a GoFundMe and titled it "Stand with Trump; Fund the $355M Unjust Judgment.” It raised more than $1 million in a week and became a national news story.

This week, Elena was invited on Jesse Watters Primetime to dunk on Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the MSNBC hosts who went crawling to Mar-a-Lago to “mend fences” with Trump after his landslide win in the election.

Techie says he was stunned to see Elena on the program, and even more surprised to see her use the bizarre Scientology word “obnose” on national television!

“Most wouldn't recognize it, but her answers were pure L. Ron Hubbard and [current church leader] David Miscavige, with nuggets like ‘a new golden age.’ She used the word ‘obnose!’ She said that Democrats accused Trump of things they were doing, straight out of Hubbard's playbook. As Hubbard put it, the ‘overt’ [intentional destructive act] doth speak loudly in accusation."

Another example, he said, was when she called Democrats “know-besters.”

Watters never flinched. Did he realize that his guest was spouting Scientologese?

Here’s the full transcript of the segment.

Jesse Watters: Let's bring in Elena Cardone, she's a former Democrat turned Trump supporter. All right, first of all, when you woke up and you saw that Mika and Joe made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to break bread with Donald Trump, what is going on?

Elena Cardone: Shock! I cannot believe it. It is just pandering at its best. Clearly they're terrified about where they're going to end up in their future, and they're trying to play nice now after a long and bitter, horrible treatment of our president for the last, really, decade. So, well, it was a nice gesture. It might be a little too late for them, I'm afraid, but interesting nonetheless.

Watters: I mean, do they think that Trump's going to audit and deport them? Is that why they're trying to get on his good side? Or are they just seeing where this is going? Because this is moving fast and their ratings are atrocious. I don't like to rub that in, but it's a fact. Their parent company might spin them off and sell them. Is this just about survival?

Cardone: It probably is about survival, but it's interesting that everything that they seem to accuse the president of and all of his affiliates for the last ten years is actually what they're doing, and they're probably going to be afraid of the exposure that is revealed once we dive into transparency and what's been going on and who's really controlling this media thing, and now they realize, wow, we are not as powerful as we thought. We actually have no say. The American people can think and obnose themselves. And the Democrats are now the party of the know-besters and certainly they were an advocate for that. And now the Republicans are just the cool party and we got it going on, and I'm excited about going into the Golden Era of the future. And it's going to be fun to watch Elon expose it all and Vivek clean it up.

Watters: It's very hard to run against fun, that's for sure. No one wants to be the anti-Golden Age party. Better believe it.

Cardone: That's right. And look at just this past weekend alone at the UFC. I mean, how fun was that? Now Tulsi Gabbard is there, Mike Johnson. I mean, everyone's getting on this party train and it is not stopping. And for the next four, eight, twelve years it's going to be full steam ahead.

Watters: All right, well, hopefully the Senate doesn't stop it in its tracks, could that be no bueno. Elena, great to see you, thank you so much.

Cardone: Absolutely. Thanks, Jesse.

Readers know that we generally like to restrict the political to our separate blog The Lowdown, but we’re glad Techie reached out with this bizarre look at Fox News getting a dose of Hubbardism.

We’ll give Techie the last word:

“Scientology, and high-influence groups in general, are really not a left-right thing anyway. Can't we all just get along?”

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Austin man arrested for threatening Scientology Ideal Org

Numerous readers sent us links to an unfortunate story out of Austin, where a man named Brandon James Mason has been charged with making a terroristic threat, a third-degree felony, after an FBI investigation of statements Mason made on Instagram in September threatening to blow up Scientology’s Ideal Org there.

CBS Austin reported that Mason was tracked down with information turned over by social media companies.

The investigation traced the threats to Mason through IP addresses, phone records, and social media accounts. Investigators say Mason continued posting similar content on new social media accounts after his original Instagram account was banned.

Mason is in jail in Travis County on a $50,000 bond, CBS reported.

Our readers know that we’ve said it for years: We want law enforcement to investigate Scientology for its abuses. But we think it’s a huge mistake for people to harass individual Scientologists or to vandalize their facilities. That doesn’t help, and it only gives Scientology more fodder to use in litigation against people like Leah Remini.

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Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

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