Larwyn's Linx: Benghazi-gate -- Obama didn't even pick up the phone until everyone was dead

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Nation

Benghazi: Obama didn't pick up the phone until everyone was dead: Nice Deb
White House: Obama made no phone calls on night of Benghazi attack: Times
Murdered while trying to save his daughter: Scoop

Obama Re-Nominates Illegal ‘Recess’ Appointees to the NLRB: RS
Until GOP fixes this issue, they will never hold power in D.C.: Hawkins
Missouri Democrats Introduce Bill Banning Second Amendment: Loesch

The Decline of America: Hanson
Repeated gaffes halted ex-cop’s rampage: ArmyTimes
Charred remains positively identified as Dorner's: USA Today

Economy

Exhausted, Overworked Obama Heading on Vacation: JWF
European GDP Takes a NoseDive: P&F
Can People or Corporations Have Too Much Cash?: Mish

Confidential USDA sensitivity training: ‘The Pilgrims were illegal aliens’: DC
Pelosi: Congressional pay cut undermines dignity of the job: Hill
For $57,232 per year you get what at Brown University?: LI

Scandal Central

Adm. James Lyons (Ret.) on Growing Benghazi Scandal: AIM
Obama Commits Assault With Battery: Bruce
Guess Who Was Buying HNZ Stock From Its Clients: ZH

Climate & Energy

America's Bright Future: Hanson
EPA caught sabotaging fracking: AT
SOTU: Energy Fabrications, Falsehoods and Fantasies: Watts

Media

S.E. Cupp Jumps the Shark: Kuznicki
What's Got Into the Water at CNN?: Driscoll
Man alive, but that Sarah Palin's dumb, ain't she?: Cold Fury

Trump: Rove Gave Us Obama: Wisdom
Marty Peretz has Second Thoughts: Driscoll
Obama SOTU Neilsen ratings lowest since 2000: Ace

Dorner — Another Angry Fatherless Black Man With a Gun: Elder
Former San Diego Mayor of Unknown Partisan Affiliation Vows to Repay $2 Million Stolen from Charity: Ace
Cruising the Web: Betsy's Page

World

Obama’s “Secret Letter” to Moscow: Loudon
Group Calls 'Authorities' After Being Asked to Disclose Hagel Info: WS
Report: Hagel Said State Department Controlled by Israel: Beacon

Cruz Statement on Hagel Filibuster: “No Reason To Rush His Nomination To A Vote…”: Nice Deb
Hagel: I'm not withdrawing despite filibuster: Hot Air
It was no different than an insurgent in Iraq or Afghanistan trying to kill us”: Cold Fury

Gallup: 92% Of Pakistanis Disapprove Of America, Up 38 Points Since Obama Took Office: WZ
Father of the Islamic Nuclear Bomb, In Tweets, Pakistani Dr. AQ Khan Legitimates Attacks On America: Atlas
Russian meteorite caught on tape; injuries reported: KABC

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue.com/Tech)

Welcome to the Malware-Industrial Complex: TechReview
LA Times website redirected users to exploit kit for over six weeks: NetSec
IE Standardization Fading Fast: Slashdot

Cornucopia

Rejected Valentines Candy Hearts Messages: Ace
Going Gaga Over Gov.gov: MOTUS
A Different Take on Valentine’s Day and Anniversaries: Primordial Slack

Image: Repeated gaffes halted ex-cop’s rampage
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Help Support the KeyWiki Investigative Project

QOTD: "Hundreds of reasons have been adduced for the fall of Rome and the end of the Old Regime in 18th-century France. Reasons run from inflation and excessive spending to resource depletion and enemy invasion, when historians attempt to understand the sudden collapse of the Mycenaeans, the Aztecs, and, apparently, the modern Greeks. In literature from Catullus to Edward Gibbon, wealth and leisure — and who gets the most of both — more often than poverty and exhaustion, cause civilization to implode.

One recurring theme seems consistent in Athenian literature on the eve of the city’s takeover by Macedon: social squabbling over slicing up a shrinking pie. Athenian speeches from that era make frequent reference to lawsuits over property and inheritance, evading taxes, and fudging eligibility for the dole. After the end of the Roman Republic, reactionary Latin literature — from the likes of Juvenal, Petronius, Suetonius, and Tacitus — pointed to “bread and circuses,” as well as excessive wealth, corruption, and top-heavy government.

For Gibbon and later French scholars, “Byzantine” became a pejorative description of a top-heavy Greek bureaucracy that could not tax enough vanishing producers to sustain a growing number of bureaucrats. In antiquity, inflating the currency by turning out cheap bronze coins was often the favored way to pay off public debts, while the law became fluid to address popular demands rather than to protect time-honored justice." --Victor Davis Hanson