Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo co-host a show called the Majority Report on Air America Radio, a left-wing talk radio network. Over the past few weeks, Garofalo has invited on the New York Detox. This is a Scientology business which, as with many Scientology operates, poses as a charity. They collect $5,000 a pop for first responders to get their quack rehashing of the Purif. While this is "free" to the actual first responders, it is pretty much pure profit for the cult.

Representatives have included Leah Remini, Jim Woodworth, and Joe Higgins. These appearances have all been on shows where Sam Seder was not present.

On Thursday, there was an argument about this, with Seder arguing that associating the show with a dubious organization was undermining its credibility. This was concerning the planned appearance of more cult representatives on Friday's show. On Thursday, Sam announced that if the Scientology representatives were going to be on the show on Friday, he was going to be asking them some serious questions about their operation. Garofalo blew up.

As soon as the cult shills realized they were going to have to face questioning, they promptly chickened out, knowing their free ride was at an end.

The argument continued on Friday, finally coming to a head in the final hour. Sam rattled off a list of objections to the detox operation, including that there was no peer reviewed objective medical evidence supporting it, that in fact, it was raising money for Scientology, and that it was basically a rehashing of the Purification Rundown, a program with no credibility. He cited, among other things, the Newkirk Herald Journal articles of the early '90s and Rick Ross' CultNews articles on Garofalo's shilling.

Garofalo responded completely irrationally, with attacks on Sam, finally crossing the line of decency with a remark that Sam wouldn't have done any of this research if it had been a Jewish organization (Sam is Jewish). After some more of this kind of ad hominem rubbish, they went to a commercial break. When they returned, Sam had left the studio, as well as Josh (the guy who runs their blog), and the show came to an ungraceful conclusion.

But the conclusion is that it is unlikely that the show will ever air another Scientology clown show.

Another Big Win for Scientology!

The Daily Kos has covered these events to some extent as well: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/2/234842/0208

Rick Ross also covered this previously:

Janeanne Garofalo goes gonzo promoting Scientology-linked program http://tinyurl.com/kmnho