Ms. MonCrief has vitally important lessons to teach that she has learned through experience and others need to know before voting.

On May 29, 2010, in "ACORN, Obama and Stealth Socialism" (https://hotair.com/archives/anitamoncrief/2010/05/29/obama-acorn-and-stealth-socialism-dire-domestic-threat__trashed/), Anita MonCrief boldly wrote:

"As an ex-ACORN insider and ex-radical who used Democrat donor lists to raise money for ACORN alter-ego Project Vote and designed the ACORN 2005, 2006 and 2007 Political Operations Year End PowerPoint presentations, I know that President Obama (for whom I now regretfully admit I proudly voted) was an ACORN guy for many years and realize that he became the instrument for the implementation of its stealth socialism agenda."

The next day, in "ACORN insider lays out the 'stealth socialism' strategy"(https://search.aol.com/click/_ylt=A0geK.nK5UdfrdUAfkFpCWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTBydWNmY2MwBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwM0BHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg-/RV=2/RE=1598576203/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.americanthinker.com%2fblog%2f2010%2f05%2facorn_insider_lays_out_the_ste.html/RK=0/RS=wEez_9WE80xwIx2AKSWQH1Rlqj0-), Thomas Lifson commented:

"Anita Moncrief has written a worthwhile personal account of her involvement with ACORN, and effectively lays out the entire strategy the Alinksy left, and its chosen instrument, Barack Obama, to 'fundamentally change' America. Moncrief describes the moment in 2008, when she went from unwitting to witting, in terms of the strategy to make America into a people's socialist republic.

"As an ACORN insider my indoctrination as a socialist was a slow but steady progression from radical liberalism to embracing the stealth socialist methods that had made ACORN a powerful force in American electoral politics. Two years ago, in the mist of a heated presidential election year, I noticed a Facebook page of Socialism 2008. The graffiti-like picture beckoned young Socialists to Chicago, Illinois on June 19th, 2008. I RSVPed for the event on Facebook without fully understanding what had just taken place. The line between radical, liberal Democrat and socialist was almost invisible at this point.

"Working for ACORN/Project Vote facilitated my crossing the 'socialist' threshold and I had become what insiders termed 'one of the true believers.' True believers were instrumental in the survival of ACORN and the process of making an employee a true believer began on the very first day."

God works in mysterious ways and gives second chances, and learning from other people's mistakes and traumatic experiences beats making or experiencing them yourself.

Set forth below is a Facebook post by Ms. MonCrief, whom I identified as the ACORN whistleblower on October 22, 2008.

Ms. MonCrief is an African-American feminist who shed tears of joy when Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, preferred Senator Hillary Clinton to Senator Barack Obama in the race for the 2008 Democrat preside3ntial nomination and then proudly walked to the polls with her then two-year old daughter on Election Day 2008 to vote for the Obama-Biden ticket.

Ms. MonCrief was a self-described "liberal" then and she believed that Senator Obama could become a great President of the United States if ACORN's malignant influence upon him should be ended and so she blew the whistle.

Unsurprisingly at least to me, Ms. MonCrief became an anonymous source for the New York Times and it choose not to report the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When Ms. MonCrief realized that might happen, even after she had agreed to be identified as a source, she reached out to me, via email, using a pseudonym, in the hope that I would post what the New York Times would bury. I agreed to help if she promptly sent me her resume and it checked out. She did and I did.

Ms. MonCrief wanted me to refer her to a "liberal" who would put the truth first and I hopefully referred her to ABC's Martha Raddatz. Ms. MonCrief also contacted CNN, which taped her over several days, but none of the tape aired and ABC did not report her story either.

When New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom called Ms. MonCrief to lament that she had been told to "stand down" by "higher up," thank God that the call went to voice mail because Ms. MonCrief was bathing her baby, and Ms. Strom's shocking words therefore are undeniable.

Those words prompted Ms. MonCrief to agree that I could write about her story in the hope of getting her airtime and I did (see https://web.archive.org/web/20120206125858/http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/gaynor/081022).

Only Laura Ingraham gave Ms. MonCrief airtime, on her radio show.

Unfortunately, Ms. MonCrief's insider story did not immediately become well known and soon to be President Obama's very experienced Republican opponent Senator John McCain shared the young Ms. MonCrief's then view that President Obama was a fine young man instead of ACORN's guy, so Obama won and McCain lost.

Ms. MonCrief's naivety I understand, but Senator McCain really should have known better.

As former McCain staffers rallied behind Joe Biden, Ms. MonCrief posted the following on Facebook:

"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.”-

Michel de Montaigne

Memory is a weird thing for me. I once testified in court, and later before Congress, because of “my amazing recall and memory.” I used to drive my ex-husband crazy with my ability to recount arguments word for word. However, for years I have had no memory of the first 10 to 12 years of my childhood…a trauma response to severe abuse. I used to get flashes and pieces of memories that reminded me of looking through one of those viewfinder toys I had as a kid, but it didn’t seem real-they couldn’t be real (I thought) as they were just too much to handle.

Those suppressed childhood memories started to come back in 2017 after my mother and stepfather both died within a week of each other. My mom passed the day of my stepfather’s funeral. At my mother’s funeral, the walls holding up the false persona I had been presenting to the world were shaken when I was confronted with my abusers. These walls became a prison shortly after her funeral due to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness..I had to “put on a good face” for the funeral and “make nice” with those who hurt me deeply…and it was overwhelming to the point of breaking that persona I had held onto for so long for survival.

That year (2017) marked the beginning of a long and painful turning point. It started with my near obsession with uncovering and chasing down my lost memories. A journey through several “dark-nights-of-the-soul” as I chipped away at all of my illusions, fantasies, and preconceived notions of self…I was on a quest for truth. However, the thing about Truth is that it doesn’t care about your wants, your dreams, or your feelings. Truth is said to set you “free,” which is why I was running after it with such zeal. But people forget to tell you that Truth is painful and raw…and persistent. It is not for the faint of heart, my friend, at least not the type of Truth that reveals traumas and abuses…nope, that SoB hits like a freight train and leaves scars.

Fast-forward to a few months ago when I woke up one day and realized I was in a severely emotionally abusive relationship with an unprincipled and compensatory narcissist (actual terms for him)…I felt so confused. It was like waking up one morning and realizing I was down “Alice’s Hole in Wonderland,” where right was wrong and up was down… my entire reality had been an illusion and there I was trying to “play nice” in a huge pile of sh#t.

Thankfully, I have enough awareness to recognize a pile of sh#t when I finally see it… so, with a bit of help from friends (the ones he hadn’t pushed out of my life), I left my little “Wonderland Hole” in New York City and the dung pile of a relationship with it. Over the past few months I have been trying to figure it all out. What went wrong? It’s easy to blame the narcissist for their lies, manipulation and gaslighting (all valid points), but it’s harder to look at yourself in the mirror and ask, “Why did you let this happen?” “Where does it hurt?” And then listen for the answer that pesky little friend “Truth” drops in response to such questions.Looking back, I can see how everything from that point forward has been a response to losing my “life partner” and my “identity” in the matter of a couple of weeks. Reeling from the suddenness of it all, I have spent the last several months unconsciously retracing my steps trying to piece together all the little things that compiled my journey into toxic codependency.After leaving NYC, I ended up in the little Texas town of Magnolia where it all began in 2017 after Hurricane Harvey. I remembered wanting to die in the days leading up to my mom’s birthday that year. That was when I became heavily involved with humanitarian aid…it was like a life preserver being thrown to me in the form of “doing something for others.” I couldn’t fix myself (at least not at that time), but I could help others.

I would console myself in knowing that even if I had to drink myself to sleep at night to get through it, at least I was helping people. Now don’t get me wrong, I was good at what I did. Surviving a natural disaster, losing everything, that is trauma… and I understand trauma. I knew what that lost look in people’s eyes meant. I knew they didn’t know where to start, how to begin to heal and be made whole again. I couldn’t find my way, but I could help them find theirs. It was an outlet that helped me feel less trapped by my own traumas and memories.

After helping in Texas, I found myself in Miami after Hurricane Irma hit. I had met up with a team and we hit the road to the Florida Keys to support a coalition of disaster relief groups. I spent time in the Keys helping where I could, and becoming “friends” with my new team. It felt good to be active…and distracted. I would eventually leave Big Pine Key and head back to Miami after Hurricane Maria, to help in Puerto Rico. While it’s not politically correct to say, I was grateful for an active hurricane season that year.During that time, however, I had a growing dependency on my love interest and others to help guide me. It seemed safer to trust others, since I felt so out of touch with myself. Unfortunately, that choice landed me in so many sketchy situations, but back then I just kept going. The good I was doing outweighed the bad. Sure, I had predators after my inheritance (seeking funding for their questionable projects), and people leeching off my kindness for personal gain, but at least I wasn’t alone, right? It became a game of denial, and I played it with as little pain as I could…numbing the heartache by going along with the crowd and their drugs and alcohol, and I threw in endless hours working to help others in need to ease my mind. Honestly, I’m grateful I’m alive to be looking back on it all.

Like I mentioned, I have been physically drawn back to many of my “origin story” locations this year (2020), and it’s been like opening a time capsule. I had put some things in storage in Miami after my partner and I had come back from 6 months in Puerto Rico. I had been paying on it for almost three years. Last week, I went back to that unit in Miami and pulled everything out. Sitting among those things I saw the life of a woman I didn’t even recognize anymore. The ultimate time capsule. Following the breadcrumbs to uncover my elusive Truth. Trying to remember what she was thinking. Trying not to judge her choices… but failing to do so.In the items strewn around the storage unit, I saw the “Old Anita,” and remembered how no one had ever taken care of her. At the age of four she became a “mom,” raising her little sister, protecting her from the abuse she endured. That protective instinct extended to all those around her, family, friends, lovers…but never to herself.

I began to see more clearly how the brokenness Old Anita experienced could lead her to follow the “idea of love” to New York where she was asked to care for another lost soul…the mother of her new partner who was dying of cancer. From here it seemed logical and even natural to protect and lie for the man she loved, even as it was destroying her sense of self. The Old Anita found stuffed in boxes in the Miami storage unit wanted love at any cost…she would be whomever she needed to be, as long as she didn’t feel alone or unloved anymore.

I sat on the floor of that storage unit for a couple of hours and picked apart the journey and more importantly I remembered and began to see things more clearly.

The anger, the rage at all of the lies, empty promises, false hopes, and disgust at myself…it all came rushing back. This woman allowed herself to be used. To play along with a new false persona. To face the world again with a beautiful lie. To allow her trauma to be used as a prop, an excuse by others for their mistreatment. I was done with her and everything that storage unit contained of her. I left that storage unit with a few items that still held value to me, but the rest I threw away. Another dark-night-of-the-soul. Another illusion slipping away.To say it was a cathartic experience would not be accurate…it was a wall breaking experience. I was ready to move beyond my fears and self-imposed limitations founded upon trauma. I was ready to experience me…just me. And for the first time in years…I felt like I mattered again.

After leaving the “boxes of broken dreams” in Miami I decided to ask myself, the inner child, what she wanted to do and she said, “Drive.” So, I rented a car that day and drove to the Florida Keys. Each step along the way I embraced the child within. I didn’t feel guilty for indulging her. No one else ever honored or indulged her, so it was up to me. We played with dolphins, played around on a jet ski and went parasailing. We swam in the ocean at night, floating without fear in the darkness. I could finally be wild, be free.I let it all go in the ocean. Every label and idea of who I thought I was. I will no longer hide behind those labels. I will no longer wait for someone to save me. I will no longer protect abusers. I will say “no” when I need to and when I want to without guilt or justification. I will let go of trying to “save the world” while ignoring myself.

I know now the only way to make a real difference is to heal..and that is the Truth that has set me truly free."

Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go”--Herman Hesse

God works in mysterious ways and gives second chances and more opportunities.

Ms. MonCrief has lessons to teach that she has learned through experience and others need to know before voting.