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"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32
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Author:  Michael J. Gaynor
Bio: Michael J. Gaynor
Date:  June 1, 2009
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Topic category:  Government/Politics

ACORN Whistleblower Anita MonCrief, Meet Whittaker Chambers

This time "Whittaker Chambers" is a young black female!

GREAT NEWS: Michelle Malkin is ready, willing and able to do what The New York Times refused to do last October (even though "Ragspierre" posted this warning at www.michellemalkin.com: "Be safe Michelle. You need to get a remote car starter and a food taster"): report the whole sinister story of ACORN, including its full involvement with now President Obama.

Excerpt from Ms. Malkin's "Document Drop: The Truth About ObamACORN" (May 29, 2009) (www.michellemalkin.com):

"They thought it would go away. They were wrong. Obama and the Left thought ACORN’s scandalous racket was a dead issue. But whistleblowers, investigative bloggers, and talk radio continue to press for transparency and taxpayer accountability. Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King has renewed efforts for congressional hearings into the financial structure of the massive, publicly subsidized activist group and its non-profit affiliates. Judicial Watch sheds light on ACORN’s partnership with the Census. Keep an eye on ACORN’s propaganda role in the Obama push for a government health care takeover. And Glenn Beck spotlights the left-wing strategy session to rescue ACORN.

"My column today returns to one of the Obama campaign’s big lies — that Barack Obama 'never organized with ACORN' and that ACORN had nothing to do with Project Vote. They were joined at the hip back then and they remain joined at the hip today."

I'm not certain what gives intrepid reporters like Ms. Malkin and shy whistleblowers like Anita MonCrief the courage to do what is right (and necesssary) when doing it is dangerous. I believe not only that God's grace and personal faith are keys, but also that their children are keys (which may strike many these days as counter-intuitive). The now little known story of Whittaker Chambers supports my belief and that story came to mind the first time I spoke with Mr. MonCrief (on October 8, 2008).

Ten days later, in "Time for October Surprise to Expose Obama Lies," posted to foreshadow Ms. MonCrief's arrival in the courtroom of public opinion, I wrote:

"Can Obama and ACORN keep a lid on the whole truth about ACORN's relationship with Obama and the Obama presidential campaign up to Election Day 2008?

"Can The New York Times whitewash the Obama/ACORN relationship the way it did the Obama/Ayers relationship?

"Is there a Whittaker Chambers-type out there today who has seen the light and decided to do what's right?

"If so, will 'Whittaker' be a white male this time?"

I knew at the time the answer to the last question was no.

I also knew that Ms. MonCrief, a young black female, was hoping that New York Times national correspondent Stephanie Strom (for whom Ms. MonCrief had become a confidential source in July of 2008) would come to Washington, D.C. to meet with and obtain documents from her and then write an expose that would result in fundamental reform at ACORN.

Interestingly, Ms. MonCrief did NOT want to adversely affected now President Obama's chance to become America's first black president (actually, half black), but she definitely wanted her fellow Americans to be warned what ACORN really was all about, so that ACORN would be reformed.

Ms. MonCrief had contacted me by email on October 7, 2009, because something made her less than sure that The New York Times actually would publish a complete ACORN expose.

So Ms. MonCrief devised a backup plan.

Ms. MonCrief's backup plan was to check the Internet for writers who understood what ACORN was really all about and contact them using an alias.

Ms. MonCrief chose to contact two: Ms. Malkin and me.

Believe me, Ms. Malkin's regret that she did not respond to Ms. MonCrief's email to her is genuine (and so is mine).

I promptly responded to Ms. MonCrief's email to me and began an email communication that led to long phone calls late at night (Ms. MonCrief has a two-year old daughter, so that was a good time). I immediately told Ms. MonCrief that she had to identify herself to me, so that I could check out both her and her information. She decided to do that, and she and her information checked out. But Ms. MonCrief still had dreams of a Times expose shortly, so I was not permitted to publicly identify her.

A week later, in the last presidential debate (October 15, 2008), then candidate Obama coolly lied to America, stating:

"...with respect to ACORN, ACORN is a community organization. Apparently what they've done is they were paying people to go out and register folks, and apparently some of the people who were out there didn't really register people, they just filled out a bunch of names.

"It had nothing to do with us. We were not involved. The only involvement I've had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs."

That was NOT Obama's only involvement with ACORN (as the liberal media establishment could have readily discovered by doing some Internet research)...and Ms. MonCrief personally knew that the Obama campaign had been improperly coordinating with the Obama campaign and had told me so.

Things changed on October 21, 2008. Ms. Strom had been scheduled to go to Washington, D.C. the next day to meet Ms. MonCrief and pick up documents.

Instead, Ms. Strom called to cancel and left a voicemail announcing that she had been told to "stand down" by "higher up." But for being a mom, Ms. MonCrief would have taken the call and there would be no voicemail evidence.

Ms. MonCrief had to be upset when she heard that voicemail, but she could not have been completely shocked. She had chosen to make a backup plan and I had told her that, even fully accepting as true her belief in Ms. Strom's sincerity and enthusiasm, I was sure that The New York Times would not permit the expose to be published (because, even though Ms. MonCrief did not want to hurt Obama or to help McCain, the truth would do precisely that if it became generally known).

Ms. MonCrief called back Ms. Strom and learned that the reason Ms. Strom had been told to "stand down" (and obediently done so) was that "higher up" feared an ACORN/Obama expose before the election might be "a game changer."

Ms. MonCrief did not fold.

Instead, she became bolder. That same day she agreed to let me publicly identify her and contacted attorney Heather Heidelbaugh and volunteered to be a witness in a pending Pennsylvania ACORN case.

Ms. MonCrief was shy about appearing on television and had heard bad things about Fox News from others, so I helped Ms. MonCrief to obtain an invitation to appear on Laura Ingraham's radio show and put her in contact with John Fund of The Wall Street Journal, who found her to be a valuable source and identified her in his reporting.

On October 29, 2008, Peter Johnson, Fox News senior legal analyst, contacted me and I arranged for him to speak with Ms. MonCrief. The insightful Mr. Johnson "got it" immediately. He reported that he had spoken to Ms. MonCrief and found her courageous. He invited her to come to New York to appear on "Fox and Friends" on the Friday before Election Day 2008 and on Fox News over the weekend and on the Monday before the election. But Ms. MonCrief was sharply conflicted: she wanted the truth about ACORN to become public knowledge as soon as possible, so that ACORN would be reformed, but she also wanted Obama to win and she did not want to go down in history as the person who blocked the election of America's first black president, or to travel to New York, or to appear on television (especially on Fox News).

As Ms. MonCrief put it in an email to Ms. Strom on September 7, 2008 (right after giving Ms. Strom a link to Ms. Malkin's August 22, 2008 article on ACORN and payment to ACORN through Citizen Services Inc.): "I mentioned before that I had info that my blackness would not let me confirm but since Malkin is all over it, I will tell you of constant contact between the Obama and Clinton campaign and project Vote. I even have donor lists from Clinton and Obama. Malkin also exposed the money connection and I was aware of that. I am sorry, but I believe in Obama and did not want to help the Republicans."

Ms. MonCrief declined Mr. Johnson's invitation, Ms. MonCrief voted for Obama, the Obama campaign prevailed and Ms. MonCrief celebrated the Obama victory.

But Ms. MonCrief's believes in the secret ballot, not card check, and she has been disappointed by how President Obama's ACORN connection has affected his nominations and policies.

Ms. MonCrief's "red, white and blueness" has trumped her "blackness" and she's answering all questions candidly.

This time "Whittaker Chambers" is a young black female!

For those unfamiliar with Mr. Chambers:

"Whittaker Chambers: Man of Courage and Faith," by Lee Edwards, Ph.D (April 2, 2001), at http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/EM735.cfm.

"...Whittaker Chambers, a veteran Soviet spy...became, in William F. Buckley Jr.'s words, 'the most important American defector from Communism.'...

"In August 1948, Chambers, an editor at Time, identified Alger Hiss, a golden boy of the liberal establishment, as a fellow member of his underground Communist cell in the 1930s. Hiss, a former assistant to the Secretary of State and former General Secretary of the United Nations founding conference at San Francisco, and then president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, immediately denied Chambers' allegation.

" * * *

"In 1952, Chambers published his magisterial, best-selling autobiography, Witness. The work argued that America faced a transcendent, not a transitory, crisis; the crisis was one not of politics or economics but of faith; and secular liberalism, the dominant 'ism' of the day, was a watered-down version of Communist ideology. The New Deal, Chambers insisted, was not liberal democratic but 'revolutionary' in its nature and intentions. All these themes, especially that the crisis of the 20th century was one of faith, resonated deeply with conservatives."

" * * *

"The book is not easy reading but is permeated with what Bill Buckley called 'Spenglerian gloom.' Exhausted by the demands of the two Hiss trials and in poor health (he had suffered several heart attacks), Chambers believed that he was probably leaving the winning side but found reason to keep fighting against Communism for his children. As he recounts in Witness, he once surveyed, on a dark cold night at his Maryland farm, the formidable forces arrayed against him--the powerful establishment, the hostile press, the skeptical public, the calumnies of the Hiss partisans--and seriously considered suicide. But when his young son John came looking for him crying, 'Papa! Papa! Don't ever go away,' he replied, 'No, no, I won't ever go away.'"

Daniel Berger posted this illuminating and informative review of Witness at amazon.com:

"Nearly unknown today, this extraordinary book deserves to be a classic. A gifted writer, Chambers soars whether discussing the world crisis that led him to Communism, his life underground, the trials of the establishment turning against him, and the religious faith that saw him through. Chambers emerges as a profoundly conscience-driven man, one whose human feelings kept him ever so slightly out of step with Communism as a party member, and which caused him repeatedly to consider the humanity of former comrades he ended up having to attack in trying to save his nation.

"Whittaker Chambers joined the American Communist Party in the 1920s. He was then recruited into the separate Soviet-run Communist underground. He helped form a secret ring of Communists among New Deal officials who then spied on their own country, passing documents to the Soviets. Chambers led the ring for about three years before his growing disillusion with Communism led him to risk his life by breaking with the party in 1937, at the height of Stalin's purges.

"He grew personally close to Alger Hiss, a New Deal lawyer with sterling credentials - including Harvard Law and working as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Hiss served in the Agriculture, State and Justice departments and later became president of the Carnegie Endowment for World Peace. He helped create the United Nations and advised Roosevelt at Yalta, where the ailing president ceded Eastern Europe to the Soviets, condemning it to half a century of Communist domination. Chambers' break with the party, and his later focus on Hiss in his accusations, is made poignant by the intensity of his friendship with Hiss.

"Hiss's supporters defended him for decades. Conservatives, meanwhile, raised troubling questions about not only the UN and Yalta but about the nation's China policy leading up to the Communist takeover in 1949. They were labelled paranoid as a result. But decrypts of Soviet wartime cables called the Venona Files, kept secret until the 1990s, strongly suggested the guilt of Hiss and other officials suspected during the McCarthy era.

"Chambers in 1939 told a high-ranking State Department official what he knew, but nothing was done. He went to work for Time magazine, becoming a star editor. In 1948, the House Un-American Activities Committee, spurred on by a young Richard Nixon, began hearings with Chambers as the main witness that Hiss had secretly been a Communist. The affair went on for nearly two years, including two trials of Hiss for perjury, ending in Hiss's conviction and three years in prison. Hiss also sued Chambers for slander, and a grand jury investigated Chambers' espionage charges. Another highly placed spy was Harry Dexter White, an assistant to FDR's treasury secretary. Long under suspicion, White died before being prosecuted. The affair saw dramatic twists and turns including Chambers' sensational production of long-hidden documents in Hiss's handwriting or typed on his typewriter - that Chambers stashed for safekeeping and briefly hid in a pumpkin before producing them as evidence.

"The Hiss affair exposed a seamy underside to upbeat New Deal liberalism, suggesting its ranks were riddled with Communists loyal to a foreign government. Chambers saw the Russians succeed not only in spying but in shaping U.S. policy through their agents, furthering their efforts at world revolution and weakening this country.

"In denial, the liberal establishment responded with the worst sort of personal attacks on Chambers, rather than support any honest efforts to get at the truth. The Republican HUAC worked at cross purposes with the Democratic Justice Department, one attempting to make Chambers' case and the other to discredit him. Reporters overwhelmingly sympathized with Hiss, an early instance of liberal press bias.

"I was struck by parallels between Chambers' time and our own. Colleges then as now far more sympathetic to the left than society as a whole. A loose morality that was doctrinaire among Communists - marriage and childbirth both discouraged in favor of "party marriages" (shacking up) and abortion - and which later became de rigeur among Baby Boomers. (Were these promoted to strengthen this society, or weaken it?) An unwillingness on the left to consider the dubious provenance of many cherished ideals, or to consider whether and how much American activists were encouraged, guided, financed or directed from abroad - and to whose ultimate advantage.

"The facts of his life are fascinating. His own insights make this book invaluable and his writing ensures it never drags. It is a testament to the application of religious ideals to public responsibilities. While believing the free world would lose its war with Communism, he stood up at great personal risk and with little or no support to warn the world of what it was refusing to face - one in which socialism led not to justice but to tyranny. Chambers was a hero for any age.

Steven Fantina offered this review at amazon.com:

"It is sad but true that a large portion of young Americans--even many with college degrees--probably have no idea who Whitaker Chambers was. Indeed, numerous conservatives likely know the name only as belonging to someone who was anti-communist but would be unable to provide more than vague generalities on his life and accomplishments.

"Ann Coulter helped rectify this unfortunate development last year with the publication of her mega-bestseller 'Slander'. Her trenchant exploration of twentieth century communism and the unbridled invective hurled against those who dared to oppose the murderous ideology introduced Chambers to a whole new generation. In interviews she has often stated that his autobiography Witness is one of the absolute-must reads for conservatives and an important title for all students of American history.

"As someone whose knowledge of Alger Hiss' nemesis was lacking, I decide to follow the sapient blonde's advice and picked up a copy of the 800-page memoir. I now second Miss Coulter's call; Witness is a moving and educational read. The extent to which communists infiltrated the United States Government in pre-World War days is frightening both in its scope and in the fact that today few Americans appreciate just how serious actual security breaches were. Chambers was well-qualified to address the magnitude of the red threat because for more than a decade he was a part of the menace. As a committed fellow traveler, he hobnobbed in all the right (left?) circles. So powerful was the communist structure within our nation that when he eventually grew disillusioned and abandoned the atheistic dead end, he firmly believed that he was 'leaving the wining world for the losing world.'

"Among the most striking features of the communist organization he exposed was its massive bureaucratic nature. Within the clandestine cabal there was an 'underground' so completely sequestered from the regular communists that few committed adherents knew who was who in the parallel penumbras. Additionally, the labyrinthine steps taken to maintain secrecy are almost laughable. Chambers' talks about never learning addresses to places he regularly visited for years; rather he knew to get there by landmarks and neighborhoods. This was a precaution in case of capture--unknown information could not be provided to the authorities. Furthermore, Chambers relates cumbersome machinations for all his assignments; yet his endeavors to deliver 'plans' or meet ever-changing, ephemeral 'contacts' seem like little more than wheel-spinning busy work. It is no wonder that conspiracy theories abound among modern day leftists--the direct descendants of the very group that perfected the art.

"Many of Chambers' observations are as suitable to the early 21st century as they were in the 1940s. A cavalier attitude toward abortion permeated communists. As soon as his first child was conceived Chambers and his wife readily conceded that abortion was their only option, but when faced with the reality of their circumstance, the innate bond of parenthood trumped the dictates of good communists. Mrs. Chambers informed her husband, 'we couldn't do that awful thing to a little baby,' a demand that he whole-heartedly accepted.

"Considering that Chambers' communist days predated the formation of Israel, his asides on that issue truly show how much things have remained the same. He writes 'Arab outrages were occurring in Palestine; the Communist International chose that moment to call for the formation of a "Soviet Arabism" to attack the Zionists.' He also talks about how pure communism demanded its followers' ideologies remain and in an earlier incarnation of Hillary's Clinton's dreaded 'right wing conspiracy,' he sites numerous expulsions due to 'rightwing deviationism.' Even the problem of illegal immigration is shown to not be an entirely new phenomenon. At least one German communist contact is described as 'probably in the United States illegally.'

One situation that has changed radically concerns Chambers successful post-Communist career at Time. It is not newsmagazine today.

"Beyond the important political tale Chambers tells, his personal story proves inspirational too. Born into a badly dysfunctional home (his only brother committed suicide, his parents lived in the same house without communicating for years), the lost soul was easy prey to the false promises of communist utopia. Marrying a left-leaner and starting a family as an avowed red forced him to confront reality, and his transformation to conservative Christian was painful and controversial but ultimately redemptive.

"His celebrated accusations against Alger Hiss stripped away his family's privacy and provoked piles of scorn upon his name (think Linda Tripp, Ken Starr, Miquel Estrada, Clarence Thomas, etc.) With the release of KGB files a few years ago Alger Hiss' guilt was proven anew, yet some influential voices still argue the traitor's innocence. As quoted in Robert Novak's newly added introduction, upon Hiss' 1996 death liberals from President Clinton's National Security Adviser Anthony Lake to Peter Jennings spoke of the charges against Hiss as either false or unsubstantiated. The incontrovertible record tells a different story, and Witness lays out the facts in perhaps a more engrossing and chilling way than any other source. Ann Coulter's Slander makes for an engaging and stimulating read, but Whittaker Chambers eloquently gives the full story in his own words."

As for who will win and who will lose, "Baldo," LieStoppers' cartoonist extraordinaire, posted this distressing news on the LieStoppers underground message board:

"Most of us grew up with the propaganda of the Soviet Union being spread by the Regime's newspaper, Pravda . In Russian it means means truth. Their lies were notorious, but unfortunately they are right in this article.

"But is it tough to swallow coming from the Russians.

American capitalism gone with a whimper

'It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

'True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

'Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

'First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their 'right' to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our 'democracy'. Pride blind the foolish.

"Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different 'branches and denominations' were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the 'winning' side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the 'winning' side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

'The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

'These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?"

With all due respect to the Russian commentator, don't count out America yet. Thanks to Ms. MonCrief, Ms. Malkin and Fox News and despite ACORN, The New York Times and the liberal media establishment and the perpetual Obama campaign, the real truth is being shared and the blatant lies are being exposed.

Michael J. Gaynor

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Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.


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