“I had no idea that John F. Kennedy replaced Ben Franklin on the fifty-cent piece,” Mary stated out of the blue.

“Yeah,” I responded, “In 1964.”

“Why?” she shot back.

“I guess because he was assassinated,” I answered.

“Well, that’s a stupid reason,” she huffed, adding “besides he was a bad man!”

She vented about how the Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs invasion was his fault, how he escalated the U.S.’s role in Vietnam, backed a coup in Iraq, and screwed around on his wife, Jackie. I said nothing — I couldn’t disagree with her assessment.

Wait until she finds out why the Mercury-head dime was replaced in 1946 with the likeness of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“Amen,” I finished, as I adjusted the pillow under my head.

Now it was time to wait for sleep to arrive. And as usual my mind rapidly wound through the day’s activities and thoughts about worldly events.

“When will I not have to write so much political shit?” I groaned, thinking about the frenetic writing habit I had developed over the last couple of years. I rolled over, closing my eyes, pretending to be asleep to fall asleep.

Still my mind was a whirlwind of activity. Thoughts zipped through my brain and prattled around like unattended children till my mind settled down and my body relaxed.

And as I faded towards sleep, the word ‘Shemitah,’ popped into my head. It was so faint a thought, I nearly ignored it.

“Shemitah,” I whispered. “‘Release’ in Hebrew.”

For months I’d been studying the ‘Shemitah,’ the seven-year cycles that means “to release.” This cycle’s set to begin, as close as I can tell September 13, though others smarter than I think it could happen as early as the eleventh or as late as the fifteenth.

Either way, it will trigger a small financial event that will cascade into a world-wide economic crisis. I’ve come to believe it will be worse than the last recession we went through – and all because we didn’t turn back to God as a nation.

Flipping through this knowledge like a spinning Rolodex, I suddenly realized I had been given the answer to my question about my writing task. Sleep overcame me fast at that point and rested well throughout the night and deep into the morning.

That morning I knew I was ‘released’ from the journey God had pressed upon me and that it would take effect as the month of the Shemitah began. It’s reassuring to know I’ve done all I’ve been asked to do and that there’s nothing left for me to do.

It’s God’s turn beginning September 1 and I’m thankful. Amen.

Earlier this year, CEO Dan Price of Seattle-based Gravity Payments, made headlines after raising his employees’ base salary to $70,000 a year. Yet, not everyone at Gravity Payments agrees with his plans to share the wealth.

Two of his top employees quit in protest whose departure was “spurred in part by their view that it was unfair to double the pay of some new hires while the longest-serving staff members got small or no raises.” And his brother, Lucas Price, filed a lawsuit against Dan for violating Lucas’ rights as a minority shareholder and breaching duties and contracts.

Finally, Price has had to rent out his own house to help cover his bills. Much of the company’s profits, $2.2 million last year, were reinvested in the company not to expand or innovate, but to cover the new minimum wage.

Now, Netflix will begin offering unlimited paid maternity and paternity leave in the first year after a child is born or adopted. The thinking behind offering unlimited-time-off perks is that it will motivate employees and increase worker productivity.

A recent study found that for every 10 extra hours of vacation time employees took advantage of, their performance ratings from their bosses climbed 8 percent, and that those who took frequent vacations were less likely to leave the company. Plus, workers not taking all of their vacation are a financial liability for companies leaving company’s saddled with $224 billion in liabilities for vacation days that employees were given but did not take.

But the reality is that giving employees unlimited time off might mean they actually take less vacation. The reason for this is something called “work martyr syndrome.”

Employees think that it will look extra good to their bosses if, despite being given unlimited vacation time, they actually take even fewer days off. And it isn’t for those with unlimited vacation.

Even those who get a set number of vacation days don’t even take them all. A 2014 analysis found that U.S. workers left an average of 3.2 vacation days on the table.

Finally, McDonald’s is rolling out self-service kiosks in restaurants across the U.S. that allow customers to order and pay for their food without ever having to interact with a human. The kiosks are reportedly a response to a call for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

And as the economy continues falter because of Progressive business models, the Obama Administration continues to push climate change and green energy – one which is scientifically unsubstantiated, while the other has failed over and over again.

Even if the White House refuses to use the words “Islam” and “radical” in the same sentence, the FBI appears to be taking the threat of domestic terrorism seriously. They issued an alert on July 2 to all law enforcement agencies in Colorado and Wyoming about a group of Middle Eastern men threatening U.S. military families.

Last May, the wife of a U.S. Army soldier was approached in front of their Fort Collins, Colorado home by two Middle Eastern men, who claimed she was married to a U.S. interrogator. When she denied this, they laughed and drove away in a dark-colored, four-door sedan with two other Middle Eastern men.

Similar incidents near F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wyoming were reported in June. The bulletin says the Middle Eastern men also try to gain personal information about military members and family members through intimidation, leaving family members fearful.

In a statement, Colorado Senator Cory Gardner said he was “alarmed” by the reports.

“This news comes less than two weeks after FBI Director James Comey, speaking in Denver, warned of the heightened threat from the Islamic State that Colorado specifically faces,” Gardner said.

The bulletin’s release comes amid the questioning of a person of interest after shots were fired a second consecutive day near Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in southern Mississippi. There were no reported injuries.

It follows the July 16 attack targeting two Chattanooga, Tennessee military installations, killing four U.S. Marines and one U.S. Navy sailor before he was himself killed. The FBI claims they can find no connection between the shooter and ISIS/ISIL.

The terror group has threatened several times to strike military members in their homes. In March, the group “Islamic State Hacking Division” posted a list of addresses belonging to 100 military members, calling for their beheadings, saying it leaked the information so that “our bothers residing in America can deal with you.”

The alert says the men haven’t been identified and that the FBI isn’t sure if the incidents involve the same men. They also ask that anyone in Colorado contact the FBI at (970) 663-1028, if approached. In Wyoming, contact the FBI at (307) 632-6224.

It’s difficult enough for the men and women in our uniformed services to do their jobs with President Obama as their Commander-in-Chief — but having to do their duty while worrying about the safety of their families on U.S. soil is simply appalling.

While everyone in the national media’s focused on the line-up for the prime-time Republican debate and who’s ‘qualified’ to take part, they’ve ignored another move made by President Obama that will damage the U.S. economy further than his signature health care plan is doing. This time Obama’s forcing states to close their coal plants and cut emissions — or risk losing federal highway funding.

President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal includes $4 billion in payments to “support states exceeding the minimum requirements” mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency “for the pace and extent of carbon pollution reductions from the power sector,” to fight global warming. The EPA says its $4 billion fund will reward states that go beyond the call of duty and lower their emissions beyond what the administration has called for.

Obama’s budget also puts into place $48 billion in green energy subsidies over the next 10 years which states could use to help meet federal emissions mandates. These subsidies will give tax breaks to companies that produced green energy and bio-fuels, buildings that installed energy-efficient equipment and for making alternative fueled vehicles.

Meanwhile, the EPA can use the federal highway fund to force states to comply with its mandates. Failing that, the agency can even carry out its own plans in the states as well as take over the state’s environmental enforcement and impose their own federal plan to reduce emissions in non-compliant states.

The EPA’s Clean Power Plan requires states to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. However, several states have already sued the EPA over the Clean Power Plan, saying it violates the Clean Air Act and infringes upon state sovereignty.

According to the agency’s own estimates, its power plant rule will force coal-fired power with a 49-gigawatts capacity or greater to close down, causing electricity prices to jump by six percent by 2020. The new rule will also cost $41 billion per year, while the agency’s $4 billion will cover only a fraction of the costs.

Coal power provides the U.S. with about 40 percent of its electricity, more than nuclear power and renewable energy combined. Sadly though, as that percentage dwindles, the long Progressive slog towards third-world status for the U.S. will continue apparently unabated by Congress.

Progressive Senators blocked efforts to end federal funding of Planned Parenthood. The legislation was in response to undercover videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing how they provide medical researchers with tissue from aborted fetuses, when in fact they are illegally selling the organs for profit.

The four videos released by the Centers for Medical Progress shows people posing as representatives of a company that purchases fetal tissue negotiating with Planned Parenthood officials. The videos also show those officials speaking casually about abortion procedures used to get tissue and close-ups of fetal organs.

During debates over Planned Parenthood’s funding, Progressive leaders attacked Conservatives, claiming they are out of touch with the average American.

“It’s our obligation to protect our wives, our sisters, our daughters, our granddaughters” from the GOP’s ‘absurd policies,’” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada “The Republican Party has lost its moral compass.”

Planned Parenthood says the videos are selectively edited and that the organization only recovers costs of the ‘procedures,’ which is legal, and only gives the tissue to researchers with a mother’s advance consent and in fewer than five states. According to Planned Parenthood, they only provide contraception, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in their clinics from coast to coast.

With three congressional committees’ investigations, probes in several states and the expected release of additional videos, Senate Conservatives had hoped the added pressure would have caused Progressive support of the groups activities to crumble.

Congressman Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina said he expects to get several dozen signatures on a letter opposing any spending bill containing money for Planned Parenthood. The letter calls for funneling Planned Parenthood’s federal dollars to other providers of health care to women, including hospitals, state and local agencies and federally financed community health centers.

Senate Conservatives say that transfer would allow women to continue receiving the health care they need, since Planned Parenthood’s has only 700 clinics. For their part, Progressives claim many of the organization’s centers are in areas with few alternatives for reproductive health care for low-income women.

This fits right in with Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger and her 1918 vision: “All of our problems are the result of over breeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.”

One of the Islamic terrorists, who attacked the “Draw Mohammed” event in Garland, Texas last May, bought a weapon through then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ gun operation that allowed thousands of firearms fall into criminal hands. Five years before the attack that ended in his death, Nadir Soofi, purchased one of the 9-mm handguns.

In 2010, Lone Wolf Trading Co., in Phoenix, Arizona, was known for selling illegal firearms. Soofi however didn’t know the gun store was part of a federal sting supposedly targeting Mexican drug lords and their traffickers.

The idea was to allow Lone Wolf to sell the illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back through the smuggling networks to the drug cartels. Unfortunately, the Obama administration lost track of an estimated 1,400 guns in ‘Operation Fast and Furious.’

It’s curious that the front-store for all the illegal activity would be known as ‘Lone Wolf,’ the same title the administration has mislabeled a number of obvious ISIS/ISIL inspired terror attacks in the U.S. Incidentally, the sting resulted in only 34 indictments and a House of Representative vote to hold Holder in criminal contempt after he refused to release documents tied to the scheme.

“This is consistent with what has previously been described as a lone wolf attack,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said of the Garland attack. “Essentially you have two individuals that don’t appear to be part of a broader conspiracy, and identifying those individuals and keeping tabs on them is difficult work.”

Soofi, who had criminal record of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, gave false the information on the federal forms and his purchase was flagged. The feds placed a seven-day hold on his application, but even that failed to stop the future-terrorist from obtaining the weapon, as 24 hours after the hold was placed, it was lifted.

So far, the FBI has refused to release any details, including serial numbers, about the weapons used in Garland by Soofi and his roommate, Elton Simpson. Some of the other ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ weapons were used in at least 200 murders in Mexico, and another has been linked to the 2010 ambush-killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

Not only did the Obama administration’s guns end up in the hands of the Mexican Cartel, but Islamic terrorists picked up a few up, too.

She’s in her mid-twenties, blonde with a very muscular body and a loud mouth. And she insisted on giving me a bad time about my pudgy gut.

“Face it, Tom.” Jenn said, “You’re jus’ an fat old man.”

“Yeah,” I responded, “But I can still take a punch to the gut with no problem.”

She reached over and poked my belly, laughing, “No you couldn’t.”

“Wanna bet?” I challenged.

Jenn smiled slyly, like she knew she’d already won the bet. I stayed quiet, letting her calculate if I were bluffing or not.

“You know I can bench press a couple hundred pounds, right?” she cautioned.

“That doesn’t scare me,” I replied, afraid my eyes were telegraphing my sudden doubt.

“Okay – here’s the deal,” Jenn offered. “I’ll punch you in the stomach once and we’ll see if you can take it. Then you can do the same to me.”

“Really?” I quizzed. “You’re serious.”

“Dead,” she shot back.

“Okay,” I answered. “But I don’t feel real comfortable about hitting a girl.”

“Yeah, old fat man,” she half-teased. “Already looking for an excuse, huh?”

I shook my head, “No. I jus’ don’t like hitting women.”

Jenn laughed. That was too much for me and I knew I had to answer her challenge as I pulled off my tee-shirt.

She lined up on me and let me have it. While it didn’t drop me or cause me to be winded or sick, Jenn’s punch was a hell of a lot harder than I had anticipated and I felt every knuckle from her fist.

It was now her turn.

She stripped off her tee-shirt, exposing a solid six-pack of stomach muscles. I let her set herself as I got ready to give her the best punch I could muster.

My fist slammed into the top ridge of muscles right under her rib-cage. I saw her eye’s bulge wildly as she gasped and dropped to the floor.

It took her a couple of minutes to regain herself.

When she did, she screeched, “What the hell, Darby — you mother-fucker! You actually hit me!”

All I could do is walk away, embarrassed and thinking, “Girls – they never fight fair.”

We were making our way across the playa after a day of chasing wild Mustangs out of the nearby canyons for a soon-to-be-happening round-up. Tired and sore, I let my horse have its head, loosely wrapping the reins around the saddle horn.

As I did this, I allowed my feet to dangle free of the stirrups and I sat half-slumped as my pony swayed me back and forth with each step. Nearby, my friend Rob did the same.

The playa is flat and dusty. It is a place without shade and sweltering hot on sunny, cloudless days like the one we were experiencing at the moment.

We had done this on many occasions and my horse knew the way back to the barn without any prompting. However, something suddenly changed in the beast, as it stopped and shivered slightly.

“Rattle snake?” I questioned in my mind.

But there was nothing but the shadow of small rock, no bigger than a golf ball in front of us. Still the horse sensed a danger; its ears shifting wildly.

Knowing anything could happen when a horse gets spooked; I slowly gathered the reins and worked my boots into the stirrups. These caused the animal to rear back and then buck forward violently.

Not seated properly, my feet not in the stirrups, I flew skyward, rocketing over the horse’s head. It wasn’t the first time I’d been unseated from a horse, nor would it be the last time.

It was however the most painful throw from a horse I ever experienced that didn’t come with a broken or dislocated bone or spilled-blood. No, I landed with a dull thud on my ass, with that lone rock solidly compressed against my sphincter.

Getting ‘corn-holed’ left me rolling in the dust, unable to speak or breathe for what seemed an eternity. After a while, I regained my composure and got to my feet.

By this time Rob had figured out what happened and was laughing his damned fool-head off. For my part, I couldn’t bare sitting, so I shuffled the last three miles back to the ranch with my butt-cheeks squeezed tight, fearing my innards might fall out.

The FBI arrested a New York man on a charge of attempting to support ISIS/ISIL. Arafat Nagi is also charged with attempting trying to join the group after traveling to Turkey on two separate occasions.

Prior to that arrest, the FBI busted a Florida man for plotting to set off a backpack bomb at a beach, inspired by ISIS/ISIL. Harlem Suarez’s arrest came after he received what he thought was a working bomb but which was actually a phony device provided by federal agents.

It took the FBI very little time to connect either man to ISIS. Yet, a man named Muhammad opens fired on a military recruiting center, and then a naval reserve center, killing four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy sailor and no connection to radical Islam is ‘found?’

Don’t you believe it!

It’s known that the killer Muhammad was studying the online writings of a now dead American-born cleric and leading member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who played an important role in encouraging and inspiring attacks inside the U.S. It’s even known that the killer Muhammad started a blog of his own, though it has only two posts.

The first refers to a test designed to, “separate the inhabitants of Paradise from the inhabitants of Hellfire.” In his second post, he claims his fellow Muslims have a “certain understanding of Islam and keep a tunnel vision of what we think Islam is.”

“We ask Allah … to give us a complete understanding of the message of Islam, and the strength the (sic) live by this knowledge, and to know what role we need to play to establish Islam in the world,” the killer Muhammad writes.

It’s even more surreal that the killer Muhammad spent seven-month in Jordan, which has seen the spread of radical Islamic ideas following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. And while staying in Jordan, Muhammad lived with his uncle, who’s linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The killer Muhammad also attended the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga, which is operates with the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which is an unindicted co-conspirator in the U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation case. NAIT is also operates the mosques attended by the Boston marathon bombers, some of the 9/11 hijackers and the two Phoenix, Arizona men who attacked the ‘Draw Muhammad’ event in Texas.

Maybe Obama’s FBI wants us to believe the killer Muhammad’s actions are yet another case of a Southern-Confederate-flag-waving-gun-toting-racist on a murderous rampage.