The Washington Post, flagship of the liberal elite in our nation's capital, ran the most marvelously revealing story this week (1/15).  In typical heart-tugging WaPo style, Emergency Care Waits Found To Be On Rise described the growing nationwide "deadly" crisis of hyper-crowded hospital emergency rooms.

After providing examples and stats showing how much longer it takes to see a physician in an emergency room, the article listed the causes of this "frightening trend."  Guess what they don't mention.
 
The idiom "elephant in the room" refers to ignoring something overwhelmingly obvious, pretending it doesn't exist.  Liberals take this one step further - they really don't see the elephant, they willfully blind themselves to the elephant's existence, in this case taking up most of the space in the emergency room of most of the hospitals in the country.

Any of you who have been in an ER recently know exactly what I am talking about:  they are overflowing with illegal aliens speaking a torrent of Spanish demanding free medical care.

It's another example of why the issue of illegal immigration is such an Achilles Heel for Democrats in November.

Chapter Sixteen: Xicotencatl – Young and Old

Are you ready for Vegas?  Yes - the TTP Vegas Rendezvous is official!  It's at the Platinum Boutique Hotel & Spa, just off the Strip and its most famous intersection of Caesar's, Bellagio, Paris, and the Flamingo.

The dates are Friday April 24^th to Sunday April 26.  We haven't been able to hold a Rendezvous since 2011 as I've been traveling so much.  And with so many requests - "Come on, Jack, when's another Rendezvous??" - it was clear we better have one this spring. 

So give Miko a call at 202-656-3008 or email him at miko@tothepointnews.com to sign up now.  I'll see you in Vegas!...

Well, here's a first.  Never before has the HFR found cause to praise Mrs. Zero, but we're happy to so this week....

Dissolve the intelligence agency that has all the dirt on you, in order to deflect attention away from you for the murder of the investigator exposing you?  Good luck, murderess.  Argentina's Curse of Cristina may with any luck soon be over...

Speaking of murderers.  Yesterday (1/30), Texas proceeded with the execution of Robert Ladd after the Supreme Court rejected ACLU arguments that his IQ was too low at 67. Here's why IQ is irrelevant...

Our HFR Health & Fitness feature this week focuses on news stories like this on CBS on Tuesday (1/27): Common Allergy Meds May Increase Odds of Dementia.  Here's how to avoid that and start thinking sharp and clear at any age...

How many hurricanes do you think will hit the East Coast of the United States in 2015? Will the Arctic ice sheet disappear next year? How fast will the U.S. economy grow? What will the level of the Dow Jones stock index be at the end of 2015? Which team will win the World Series?

Go back and look at past predictions made by the experts, and then look at what really happened.

Climate alarmists 15 or so years ago were forecasting catastrophic events by this time. Al Gore and his alarmist crowd told us that by now we would be having more and stronger tornadoes and hurricanes.

And indeed, many tornado and hurricane records have been broken -- not because there were more, but because there have been fewer. Florida has now gone a record nine straight seasons without a significant hurricane.

Government economists have no better track record at predicting what will happen to the US economy next year than climate alarmists.  Maybe worse and here's why.

When you think of what you'll be like ten years from now, if you're like most people, you probably imagine that you'll be just like you are now. Yet when you look back ten years, aren't you different than you were then?

Of course you are different today than you were ten years ago - unless you've removed yourself from any experience of living. Life is a continual anti-entropy endeavor. If we don't expend energy to create order, the natural tendency of things to move toward disorder takes over.

If you don't mow the lawn, the lawn becomes a growth of weeds; if you don't use your body in some kind of physical activity, your body begins to break down; if you don't use your mind to learn and think about new things, your mind will become less active and effective.

You will be different than you are now in ten years. That's a fact of life. The question is, how will you be different; and will you be different mostly as a result of events, or through conscious choice?

If you Google "Obama" and "assassination" you will get 384,000 hits.

All over the world, the media is speculating on the possibility.  Typical is the January 8 (the day of the New Hampshire primary) headline in one of Australia's major newspapers, The Australian: Obama Must Be Wary of the Assassin's Gun.

The "news angle" of thousands of such stories is the same.  The first line of The Australian story is:  "Barrack Obama is crazy brave.  His victory in Iowa puts him in the crosshairs of many a gun-toting racist for whom the thought of a black president is an abomination."

It's the drumbeat theme echoing around the globe:  evil racist-fascist right-wing war-mongering child-eating nazi conservatives will always destroy America's hopes of being a peaceful humanitarian nation.

After all, it was just such a fascist-nazi right-winger that murdered JFK and killed Camelot, right?  What's that?  Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist?  Oh...

Please ignore that impossibly embarrassing fact.  Especially since it brings up the real question that no liberal dares to think, much less ask:

Will Hillary find an Oswald of her own to take out Obama?

Chapter Nine: Malinali’s Prayer

When Malinali finished her story, Cortez spoke to her directly. She had learned enough Spanish to mostly understand him.

“Doña Marina, you know now that I am a man, and not this Mesheeka god, yes?”

She nodded.

“Yet the Mesheeka king does not think I am a man just like him - he believes instead that I could actually be one of his gods?”

She nodded again.

Cortez crossed himself. He looked at Aguilar. “These Mesheeka are stranger and more evil than I thought possible, Jeronimo. Their religion is the worship of Satan himself, the gods they worship are devils - except for one god, this Quetzacoatl, who preaches good not evil. And it is him they are afraid of, it is him they have somehow confused with me. What is it they are afraid of?”

Aguilar shrugged. Cortez’s dark eyes shifted to Malinali.

The long-simmering struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for Mid-East supremacy has escalated to a dangerous new level as the two sides fight for control of Yemen, reminding markets that the epicenter of global oil supply remains a powder keg.

Brent oil prices spiked 6% to $58 a barrel after a Saudi-led coalition of ten Sunni Muslim states mobilized 150,000 troops and launched air strikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi militias in Yemen, prompting a furious riposte from Tehran.

Analysts expect crude prices to command a new "geo-political premium" as it becomes clear that Saudi Arabia has lost control over the Yemen peninsular and faces a failed state on its 1,800 km southern border, where Al Qaeda can operate with near impunity.

The Saudis face an impossible dilemma. The harder they hit the Houthis, the greater the danger of a power vacuum that can only benefit Al Qaeda and Islamic State groupings that already control central Yemen. They are among the most lethal of the various Al Qaeda franchises. A cell from that area was responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris.

Yemen is the latest country swept up an epic struggle for mastery between the Sunnis and Shias across the Middle East that some have compared to the Catholic-Protestant blood-letting of the Thirty Years War in 17th Century Europe.  Could this struggle end up tearing Saudi Arabia apart?