They seem to believe that if they just keep telling the American people over and over that things are getting better, eventually the American people will believe that it is actually true. On Friday, it was announced that the unemployment rate had fallen to "7 percent", and the mainstream media responded with a mix of euphoria and jubilation. For example, one USA Today article declared that "with today's jobs report, one really can say that our long national post-financial crisis nightmare is over."

But is that actually the truth? If you assume that the labor force participation rate in the US is at the long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5 percent instead of 7 percent. There has been absolutely no employment recovery. The percentage of Americans that are actually working has stayed between 58 and 59 percent for 51 months in a row. But most Americans don't understand these things and they just take whatever the mainstream media tells them as the truth.

And of course the reality of the matter is that we should have seen some sort of an economic recovery by now. Those running our system have literally been mortgaging the future in a desperate attempt to try to pump up our economic numbers. The federal government has been on the greatest debt binge in US history and the Federal Reserve has been printing money like crazed lunatics. All of that "stimulus" should have had some positive short-term effects on the economy.

Sadly, all of those "emergency measures" do not appear to have done much at all. The percentage of Americans that have a job has stayed remarkably flat since the end of 2009, median household income has fallen for five years in a row, and the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row. Anyone that claims that the US economy is experiencing a "recovery" is simply not telling the truth.

It's not just Detroit retirees who are worried about their pensions. Financially troubled cities in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania will soon face decisions on what to do with chronically underfunded pension funds, and experts say the Detroit ruling has made it easier for cities to argue that pensions must be cut.

"If I were a retired public-sector pensioner, I'd be worried today," said Olivia Mitchell, a professor at the Wharton School of Business and the director of the Pension Research Council.

For decades, representatives of public-sector pensions have depended on constitutional provisions in various states, including Michigan and Illinois, that protected pensions. Now, US Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes' ruling has shown that federal bankruptcy laws preempt those state provisions. Any city that has underfunded pensions and troubled finances could soon look to bankruptcy as a way out of paying pensions, experts say, as long as their state allows them to file for Chapter 9 protection.

"This is really the first time that there's been a clear decision by a judge that, yes, pension promises are on the cutting board too," Mitchell said.

"Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it," the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill. He said the Justice Department should prosecute Clapper for giving false testimony during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March.

During that hearing, Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat for Oregon) asked Clapper whether the National Security Agency (NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper insisted that the NSA does not — or at least does "not wittingly" — collect information on Americans in bulk. After documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA collects records on virtually all US phone calls, Clapper apologized for the misleading comment.

The intelligence director said he tried to give the "least untruthful" answer he could without revealing classified information. Sensenbrenner said that explanation doesn’t hold water and argued the courts and Congress depend on accurate testimony to do their jobs. "The only way laws are effective is if they're enforced," Sensenbrenner said. "If it's a criminal offense — and I believe Mr Clapper has committed a criminal offense — then the Justice Department ought to do its job."

Germany’s Social Democrat party will announce next week (14 December) the results of a ballot of its members on whether to accept a coalition with the Christian Democrats under the leadership of Angela Merkel, but the details of the agreement struck on 27 November by the two parties will not be changed.

That agreement commits the coalition “to take new political initiatives to strengthen and deepen the [European Union’s] common foreign and security policy” and argues that EU leaders “should as a rule once a year deal with foreign, security and defence policy”.

The leaders will discuss EU security missions abroad, strengthening the European defence industry, and co-operation to develop defence equipment.

Netanyahu quoted incendiary statements by Iran's leaders, who called Israel "a rabid dog," among other things. The Iranian regime, he said, "is committed to our annihilation and I believe that there must be an uncompromising demand at the Geneva talks, for a change in Iran's policy."

"In other words, there needs to be not just a change in the capability of Iran to arm itself, but also a change in its policy of genocide. I do not think that I or anyone can exaggerate the threat that Iran poses to the Middle East."

One thing that budget hasn’t bought, however, is subtlety. The US National Reconnaissance Office launched a top-secret surveillance satellite into space Thursday evening, and the official emblem for the spy agency’s latest mission is, well, certainly accurate, to say the least.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence live-tweeted Thursday’s launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and throughout the course of the ordeal made no effort to ignore the logo for the NROL-39 mission.

The latest spy satellite to be sent into orbit by the NRO can be recognized by its seal: a malevolent octopus with furrowed brows that also happens to be wrapping its tentacles around all corners of the Earth.

Juan Carlos Lentijo, head of IAEA’s mission to Fukushima Daiichi, December 4, 2013: “Controlled discharge is a regular practice in all the nuclear facilities in the world. And what we are trying to say here is to consider this as one of the options to contribute to a good balance of risks and to stabilize the facility for the long term.”

Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, December 4, 2013: “You cannot keep storing the water forever. We have to make choice comparing all risks involved.”

Tepco – with no financial incentive to actually fix things – has been insanely irresponsible and has only been pretending to contain Fukushima. So instead of doing something to contain the radiation, they’re going to dump it.

Mutation breeding, after booming in the 1950s with the dawn of the Nuclear Age, is still used by seed developers from BASF SE to Dupont Corporation to create crops for markets that reject genetic engineering. Regulators don't demand proof that new varieties are harmless. The US National Academies of Science warned in 1989 and again in 2004 that regulating genetically modified crops while giving a pass to products of mutation breeding isn't scientifically justified.

Mutant breeding was developed during the Second World War and promoted during the Cold War as a peaceful use of nuclear technology. It created thousands of new plant varieties by knocking out genes with X-rays and gamma rays as well as chemicals. Atomic gardens, built around gamma-ray emitters, were popular among breeders in the 1960s and Japan still operates one. China began launching seeds into space in 1987 to take advantage of cosmic radiation and low gravity, developing more than 40 mutant crops with higher yields and better disease resistance.

Most of the world's wheat, rice and barley are descendants of mutant varieties, according to [program head Pierre] Lagoda. Mutagenesis is used to give fruits and vegetables a new colour and to make grains shorter and easier to harvest. In the US, mutagenesis was used to develop Star Ruby grapefruit and varieties of lettuce, beans, oats, rice and wheat. In the US, where only GMOs are required to pass through an approval process, the Department of Agriculture issued a memo this year verifying crops created through mutagenesis as acceptable even for organic farming.

The order from administrative law judge Robert N Spencer said Masterpiece Cakeshop in suburban Denver discriminated against a couple “because of their sexual orientation by refusing to sell them a wedding cake for their same-sex marriage.” The order says the cake-maker must “cease and desist from discriminating” against gay couples.

Although the judge did not impose fines in this case, the business will face penalties if it continues to turn away gay couples who want to buy cakes. A similar case is pending in Washington state, where a florist is accused of refusing service for a same-sex wedding. In New Mexico, the state Supreme Court ruled in August that an Albuquerque business was wrong to decline to photograph a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony.

Colorado has a constitutional ban against gay marriage but allows civil unions. The civil union law, which passed earlier this year, does not provide religious protections for businesses.

Netanyahu, who was accompanied by his wife Sara, gifted the pope a book about the Spanish inquisition written by his father Benzion Netanyahu, a prominent historian. It bore the inscription: "To His Holiness Pope Francis, great guardian of our common heritage." The pontiff gave the Israeli premier a carved panel of Saint Paul.

At the end of the 25-minute meeting, Netanyahu's wife told the pope: "We are expecting you, we can't wait."

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said no date has been set for the trip. Netanyahu had hoped to meet the pope in October, when he visited Rome for talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry. But the Vatican said Francis was too busy, fueling Israeli media speculation of a snub.

The leader of the world's only Jewish state giving the leader of the Catholic Church a book that largely revolves about Spanish Catholics questioning, torturing, and punishing Jewish converts to Catholicism is certainly noteworthy. The Spanish inquisition is widely held up as one of the worst excesses of the Roman Catholic Church, and thousands of people were expelled from Spain or burned at the stake. Worse still, the inquisition of Catholic converts (and the use of torture to discover heretics) was first legally sanctioned by Pope Innocent IV.

So, Netanyahu's gift may seem passive aggressive (or maybe just aggressive), and perhaps it is. But it is important to think of the context of the book, which is written by Netanyahu's father Ben-Zion Netanyahu, a well-regarded historian who worked at both the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Cornell University.

The book given to the pope, titled "The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain," is considered Netanyahu's most important work, and it reflects deep pessimism. The book argues that, contrary to the widely held view that the Jewish converts persecuted by the Catholic church were secretly practicing Judaism, they were in fact devout Catholics who had forsaken their religious heritage. As such, the book argues, the persecution of the Jews was not truly based on religious grounds, but on a racial prejudice and financial envy that would be echoed years later in the Holocaust.

Kiel's HGW shipbuilding company has confirmed its decision to sell two submarines to Singapore. In the island disputes in eastern and southeastern Asia, Singapore is seen as one of the West's reliable partners. The current territorial disputes over the archipelago known as the "Diaoyu Islands" (in China) and the "Senkaku Islands" (in Japan), which are claimed by both countries, gives an indication of the conflicts emerging in the region.

Interest in these islands is based not so much on their resources but rather on conflicting geo-strategic interests: These islands are part of a chain of islands Beijing considers an important defense against possible aggression. Berlin is observing these tensions with apprehension because they could threaten German business interests.

German arms exports to the region, as well as the Bundeswehr's growing cooperation with Japan, South Korea and other Western allies, are an indication that, in the case of an escalation of conflict, Germany would take sides - against China.

The source said the security arrangements Kerry proposed were unacceptable because they would not prevent Israelis from continuing to live in the region. Kerry’s proposals were controversial among Israeli politicians. MK Moti Yogev (Jewish Home) said of the arrangements, “We are not interested in the security arrangements that the Americans are trying to sell us in the [Jordan] Valley or the [Temple] Mount."

Yogev told Kerry, "We saw what happened as a result of security arrangements like these, after Oslo and saw how you retreated from the position of pressure on Iran and allowed it to become a nuclear threshold state which threatens Israel."

“There is only one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean: the state of Israel, which defends itself, with G-d’s help,” he concluded. Earlier, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon said Israel must clearly tell Kerry that it will not sign an agreement that would put Israeli lives at risk.

With that first mention of the “i word,” leaks began springing from the dam that had been holding back the House GOP lawmakers united by frustration with President Obama’s executive abuses. Republicans have been watching impotently as Obama has walked all over the law, with increasing brazenness the further he gets into his tenure.

His first term included major clashes over Congress’s subpoena power and, months before the election, the president’s imposition of the “DREAM Act” by fiat — something he had publicly said before was beyond his legal authority. Almost a year into Obama’s second term, his unilateral delays of Obamacare and other legally questionable actions are now routine. He even threatened to veto a bill that would have ratified something he had done on his own without any clear authority, the delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate.

“It’s a real problem,” House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte says. One of the biggest frustrations: Senate Democrats don’t seem to give a rip. “To me, the Senate being complicit in watching the executive branch strip the powers of the Congress is absolutely despicable,” Goodlatte tells me. Having dismissed the “power of the purse” as obviously ineffective (just look at the government shutdown, several lawmakers and witnesses pointed out), move on down the line to lawsuits and, finally, the remedy that shall not be named.

“Then the next recourse is, as Mr Rozenkranz said, the i-word. “I don’t think you should be hesitant to say the word in this room. A check on executive lawlessness is impeachment. And if you find the president is willfully and repeatedly violating the Constitution... I think that would be a clear case for impeachment,” he said.

JONATHAN TURLEY: Thank you, Mr Chairman. The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he's not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He's becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. That is the concentration of power in every single branch.

This Newtonian orbit that the three branches exist in is a delicate one but it is designed to prevent this type of concentration. There are two trends going on which should be of equal concern to all members of Congress. One is that we have had the radical expansion of presidential powers under both President Bush and President Obama.

We have what many once called an imperial presidency model of largely unchecked authority. And with that trend we also have the continued rise of this fourth branch. We have agencies that are quite large that issue regulations. The Supreme Court said recently that agencies could actually define their own or interpret their own jurisdiction (House hearing, December 3, 2013).