Two years ago I had the worst holiday season I've ever had. I had been laid off from a job I loved on December 8th, had no money, B of A had sucked up nearly $1,000 in overdraft fees, leaving me owing them my last paycheck, and I had no prospects for any income until after the first of the year. I was depressed, hurt, angry, and proud. Finally one night I broke down on my blog and poured it all out in a post not asking for help, but just venting on my perceived helplessness. In my state of (somewhat irrational) grief, I viewed the breakage of my last vintage Coke glass as a symbol of my downfall. Seriously.

The next day I received an email from a reader with a donation. The day after that, four vintage Coke glasses arrived on my doorstep from a long-time blog friend and reader.

My then-14 year old daughter decorated the living room while I was out trying to scrounge up some money and left me a note telling me to get over it and get some spirit, since it wasn't the money that mattered.

Those gestures really turned around my whole outlook. How could they not? The kindness of strangers and family alike pulled me out of my funk and pridefest into a realization that money mattered less than the relationships I was (and am) fortunate enough to have. So with that, I share this story with you.

Last week, Jenny "The Bloggess" offered $30 gift cards to people who needed them. From there, her effort snowballed into something bigger than all of us.

In the past few days that post has gotten over 500 comments and so many heart-breaking requests were from people who need a small hand-up to buy food for Christmas dinner or from people who are planning on telling their children that there is no Santa because otherwise they wouldn’t understand why he didn’t come. You can’t read the comments and not ache a little because so many of us have either been there or see how easy it would be to be in their position one day. But here’s the amazing thing…every time someone would leave a comment asking for help someone else would leave a comment asking to help. And that’s why as of Friday morning, every single person who asked for help here is matched up with at least one person who will be sending them a gift card. In fact, so many people offered to help that we were able to give out multiple gift cards to people who had a greater need. And when things seemed dicey and I was about to call for an end to comments a wonderful man emailed me and told me that he’s so enjoyed the community on this blog that he wanted to donate $1000, no questions asked.

That was only the beginning. From her Sunday update:

I still have another hundred emails to mail out before I can go to sleep but it looks like well over 800 gift cards will be sent out if everything goes through as planned.

People have contributed in (and have been helped in) America, Canada, England, Germany, Australia, Asia…and they continue to help. Every time we get down to our last donor someone else steps forward. I wish I could share all the emails from people who felt that this gave them the hope to get through the next year and the strength to keep looking for a job or a place to work because they now had faith that people cared. There were even some who admitted later that they were considering suicide until this gave them hope. Some of those people considering suicide? Were the donors.

This phenomenon will not be something that's repeated. It springs from people needing to give and others needing to receive. It is the spontaneity of the thing that makes it so special. Not a program, not a charity, just people reaching out to others.

As you will see from her post and the comments, it doesn't touch even the edge of the needs out there, but it at least gives people an opportunity to cross a bridge and help those who need help most. It is hope that encourages me most: hope even for a small gesture.

I hope your holidays are warm, bright, and offer a similar opportunity to reach or be reached.

Update: Here is her final update on the post. $39,000 $40,000 donated to 450 people. Wow.

Final tallies: Over 900 gift cards were sent out by 683 people who were so thrilled to help. 435 people who needed small Christmas miracles received small donations for medicine, food and presents under the tree for their children. No large corporations got involved. No one only offered to donate if they got something out of it themselves. With no sponsorships, no ulterior motives and with only a simple need to reach out and help a perfect stranger 683 everyday, normal people (Jewish, Christians, Atheists, Muslims and more) sent out over $39,000 worth of donations to make sure Christmas came.

Happy Holidays

This holiday season, credit card companies are giving the gift of unexpectedly high interest rates. According to an exhaustive report in The New York Times, credit card companies are doubling or tripling interest rates with little warning or explanation, forcing thousands of Americans to pay unreasonable and unwarrantedly higher bills. The slightest slip--like paying a utility bill late--can lead to a rate hike, with card companies "acting like modern-day loan sharks," writes The Times. Halliburton isn't the only one overcharging America.

Rep. Eric Massa has been on fire lately. First he took down Dick Cheney with a fabulous moment on MSNBC and now he's going after yet another odious one.

I asked him if he would comment on C&L about the way Jim DeMint has been disgracing the halls of Congress with his outrageous behavior over national security and he stepped up to the plate and made an exclusive video just for us.

Massa: Let me be very clear. When Senator Jim DeMint personally and individually kept the appointed director of the Transportation Security Agency from being able to not only have a fair hearing and actually received that appointment, he placed the traveling American public at increased physical risk to terrorist attacks. And now that he's showing an incredible amount of cowardice by first denying that he ever did it and by nuancing that this is all about collective bargaining. He is demonstrating the kind of partisan destruction of our homeland security policies that is simply not accessible and so I call Jim DeMint out.

I'll debate him anywhere, anytime because I know what's he's doing. For him to insult the American public by saying that somehow collective bargaining will place us at greater risk is literally, is literally to denounce the services of great organizations as the NY Fire Department and the NY City police department who, when the towers were burning didn't think about collective bargaining, but ran in when others were running out.

So shame on you Jim DeMint. You are non deserving of the title that you have been given and you are not deserving the responsibilities that you must exercise for the protection of the American people. And I'm calling you out.

DeMint has been playing politics with our air travel security and it's as Eric Massa clearly states---"Shameful." Does Jim DeMint have the guts to stand up to Eric Massa and debate him on any show he wants?

Republicans have targeted Massa and he's up against a multimillionaire self-funder. If you can help this courageous American hero, please contribute to his re-election campaign here.

Howie Klein has some great background information on Jim DeMint:

South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint was born in Greenville in September, 1951. Eight years later, September, 1959, Eric Massa was born in Charleston. Two sons of South Carolina-- but on very different tracks. The son of a career naval officer, Eric Massa's life has been dedicated to serving his country. Long before being elected as the congressman from an Upstate New York district, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and then served in the U.S. Navy for 24 years, wrapping up a distinguished military career as aide to NATO Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark. He ran fro office as a staunch supporter of working families, particularly in regard to universal health coverage and the kind of FAIR trade that encourages domestic job growth, rather than the misnamed "free trade" that has seen millions of good-paying American jobs shipped overseas.

DeMint is the product of a tragic divorce and a hellish religious education. Though a right-wing hawk, he carefully avoided the Vietnam War and military service and, after college and its many deferments, went to work doing marketing research, starting his own firm and always known to be in pursuit of financial advancement. He ran for Congress on a platform extolling greed, selfishness, bigotry and elitism.

Now in the U.S. Senate, DeMint is the leader of the obstructionist bloc that has formed around the idea of doing everything in their power to hinder the normal functioning of government in the hope of sabotaging Obama's presidency.

Just think: It could always be worse. You could be stuck in a shack in the frozen north with nothing but shoe leather for a feast.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone. We'll be back when our distended stomachs have recovered.

In order for all of us at C&L to get some much deserved time over the holidays with our friends and loved ones, John Amato has decided that we will be posting a little less over the next couple of weeks. We'll still be around for any breaking news, but we'll do fewer regular posts and host an open thread every afternoon.

For this open thread, I was inspired by my chronically procrastinating husband, who is braving the traffic and jammed parking lots to go finish(begin?) his shopping on this last weekend before Christmas. It made me think of some gifts I would love to give people we feature here on C&L regularly (my phone number to Keith Olbermann notwithstanding).

Like this for Chris Matthews...

Or these cards for Culture Warrior Bill O'Reilly ...

Or this for Campbell Brown and Dan Senor's new baby...

...and lest we forget, a certain Mr. Amato is just begging to find this under his Christmas tree.

So what kind of gifts would you like to give? And please, keep it family-friendly.

When I was a kid, my class would have to write cards to soldiers in Vietnam during the holidays, our teachers reminding us that these men and women were far from home and all the comforts of the holidays. I remember hearing how much it meant to the troops to get these little packages with childish scrawls and pictures, along with the socks and chocolate and other treats we would send along to bring them a little bit of home in the Vietnamese jungle. Maybe that's why this seems so simultaneously poignant and pathetic.

Hundreds of thousands of holiday cards and letters thanking wounded American troops for their sacrifice and wishing them well never reach their destination. They are returned to sender or thrown away unopened.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax scare, the Pentagon and the Postal Service have refused to deliver mail addressed simply to "Any Wounded Soldier" for fear terrorists or opponents of the war might send toxic substances or demoralizing messages.[..]

USO spokesman John Hanson said that like the military, the nonprofit service organization does not deliver unopened mail to unspecified recipients. He said the USO worries about security as well as hateful messages from war critics.

"We just want to make sure it's not, `Die, baby killer,'" he said. "There are people out there who act irrationally, and we don't want anyone to get a message that would be discouraging."

That's right...you can put your life on the line, but we think you're too delicate for bad words on a card...as if people who are against the war are calling the troops baby killers. It's a disgusting slur on both the troops and those of us who want them out of harm's way.

Good morning. I'm Lance Mannion and I am a fugitive from a chain gang. I'm also a fugitive from a deadline, so l'd better get to this quick.

Guest host for the round-up: Me. My blog: here. Usual subjects: Whatever. Today's links: Coming right up.

Roxanne Cooper finds evidence that "the the anti-science/ pro-big business/ anti-Constitution/ othering coalition" otherwise known as the national Republican Party "is melting faster than Kilimanjaro".

Steven Hart has an attack of anti-nostalgia for the cigarette ads that used to interrupt the stories in the paperback books he loved back when he was young and impressionable.

Plenty of Democrats aren't happy at the prospect of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee---George Clooney, for one, according to the fab David E., who had cocktails with the man. Taylor Marsh, though, has her doubts about Barack Obama.

Pam Spaulding on Mike Huckabee's "rapist/murderer problem." Publius reminds us of how Huck's pardon of Dumond fits in with the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to destroy Bill Clinton---Dumond was innocent, don't you know? And Bill had him railroaded.

And with the holidays crashing down upon her, Quinn Cummings tries to find a place of sanity "somewhere between Ebenezer Scrooge and Thomas Kincaid."

Deadline met. Barely. Over and out.

Send tips to lance(atsign)lancemannion(dot)com.

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I was watching MSNBC this morning and during a segment on the Black Friday shopping frenzy and the throngs of people waiting in line to get into a New Jersey mall, when something caught my eye. I rewound the video and sure enough, the first two people through the door were wearing protest shirts -- "Impeach Bush" and "Out Of Iraq".

I don't know who these brave souls are, but I thought I'd thank them for waiting in line to get the chance to make their statement and give them props for getting the holidays off to a great start and trying to spread some good will. We can only hope security didn't tackle, tase or beat them...

*Update: They made it on CNN later in the morning!

President Bush announced that he was opening up the military airways to help ease air traffic congestion for the holidays and Fox & Friends was jumping for joy. Finally, Bush did something that they could celebrate, right? Wrong....

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"Great," said Steve Doocy a few times as he waited for Mike Boyd, an aviator analyst to agree....unfortunately, he quickly threw water on their happiness and called Bush's new measure a waste of time..

Doocy:...what's that going to do?

Boyd: What Bush said yesterday isn't going to fix anything.

Q: Yea, but isn't it going to open it up at least the people will not experience potentially some of the delays that we've all been experiencing in the last year. It seems to have gotten so much worse?

Boyd: It's not going to be any better or any worse, but the point is there is not much military air space that's going to make a whole lot of difference. Plus, we still have the dilapidated air traffic control system that can't handle weather, managing those airplanes, so we're just as vulnurable as we were last week. Not gonna be any better, but it might not going to be any worse.--but this is no solution. What I heard yesterday from President Bush was him reading off of a crib sheet. It was really embarrassing.

Doocy: Mike Boyd, who will not be going to the White House Christmas party this year...(laughter)

I'm sure Mike was anxiously waiting for his invite to appear....That'll teach him....

WaPo:

President Bush yesterday announced measures intended to curb airline delays during the Thanksgiving travel frenzy, including freeing up military airspace for commercial use. "We can do better," Bush said at a White House briefing. "We can have an aviation system that's improved."

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Defense Department will open military airspace from Florida to Maine -- creating Thanksgiving express lanes for commercial planes -- between Wednesday and Sunday next week.

Just like holiday Christmas retailers, the spawn of BillO and Dobson like to rush the season. Talk2Action:

These days, the Religious Right doesn't even have the decency to wait until Thanksgiving to start whining about what terms people use to describe the December holidays.

Liberty Counsel, a Religious Right legal group associated with the late Jerry Falwell, issued an alert Oct. 30 vowing to slap retailers with either a "Friend" or "Foe" label this year based on whether the word "Christmas" appears in their ads, in catalogs and on Web sites.

Focus on the Family, in an effort to be hip and trendy, has a new video short out featuring Stuart Shepard, one of its faux reporters. The cheeky Shepard explains how this year he's celebrating "Tossmass" by discarding all of the catalogs that fail to use religiously correct terminology.

Not to be outdone, the folks at World Net Daily are hawking "Christmas Defense Kits" featuring a bumper sticker that reads, "This is America! And I'm going to say it: `Merry Christmas!'"

Read more...