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As millions of Americans get ready for the July 4th holiday weekend, some more dreary news on the job front.

The government reported another 467,000 jobs were lost in June — far worse than forecast and the first time in four months that the number of jobs lost went up.

The unemployment rate — now at 9.5 percent — has gone up for nine straight months and sits at a 26-year high. One expert describes these numbers as not catastrophic… but "still pretty damn lousy."

As the recession drags on, a new Gallup poll shows 71-percent of Americans say they have cut back spending… while 88-percent say they're watching spending very closely. This is despite the fact that 78-percent of those surveyed say they have enough money to buy only what they need.

21-percent say they worried "yesterday" about spending too much.

Gallup suggests these results show Americans may have reached a "new normal" of spending less and that frugality may become a permanent part of the national fabric.

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House Minority Leader John Boehner calls the climate change bill a "pile of manure." Only he used the other word for it.

The Democrats released a 300-page amendment to this 1,200-plus page bill at three a.m. on Friday — just hours before the chamber would vote — and before the July 4 recess. Much like the economic stimulus bill, it seems nearly impossible that members even had the chance to read it. The bill passed by a narrow margin — with virtually no Republican support.

The measure would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17-percent by 2020 and 83-percent by 2050 through the so-called "cap and trade" program where companies would buy and sell emissions credits. It would also force utilities to make more power from renewable sources.

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South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admits he's been having an affair with a woman from Argentina — which is where he's been for the past week. This comes after days of speculation on the whereabouts of the Republican governor, ever since he went AWOL last Thursday.

Sanford's staff said Monday that he was hiking along the Appalachian Trail, where Sunday was nude hikers day. That's where he told his staff he might be going. I wonder if he knew it was nude hikers day. Probably not.

As late as yesterday, Sanford's wife told CNN she still hadn't heard from her husband. Sanford has four sons — and was away from his family over Father’s Day weekend… Charming man.

Sanford announced he's resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association. He was also once thought to be a contender for the 2012 presidential nomination. Governor Sanford is not what the Republican Party needs at this moment — or ever.

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There's growing speculation in Alaska that Governor Sarah Palin won't run for reelection in 2010. Politico reports that top Republicans and Democrats are quietly lining up to run for the office — should Palin decide not to.

No one has filed the official paperwork yet; but many are taking the governor’s silence as a sign that she’ll opt out of a second term in order to get more involved in national politics.

One politician who is weighing a run put it this way: "If you’re Palin, once you've flown first class, you don't go back to coach. She's been to the show and certainly seemed to like it there."

He suggests that barring some "unforeseen collapse on the national stage," Palin won't run again for governor.

Some experts expect the governor to wait as long as possible before announcing her plans — that way she can keep her options open and minimize her lame duck status as governor if she decides not to run again.

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President Obama's plan to push through health care reform this year is very much in danger of being dead.

Top Democratic advisers are urging the president to get even more involved in the debate before it's too late. The Congressional Budget office last week put the price tag at more than $1 trillion over the next decade; and said it would still leave millions of Americans uninsured.

Republicans have seized on this, insisting that health care reform may be too expensive at a time when we're already facing huge deficits. Senator Lindsey Graham called the CBO estimates a "death blow" to a government-run health care plan.

Some in the GOP suggest an overhaul of the nation's health care system just might have to wait for a while. They're also accusing the White House and Democrats of trying to rush through what they see as flawed legislation this year, before the mid-term elections in 2010.

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When it comes to showing support for thousands of Iranian protesters — critics say President Obama is not doing enough.

Republican Congressman Mike Pence has introduced a resolution that would "speak a word of support for the people of Iran."

He says he doesn’t think the U.S. should endorse the opposition candidate; but rather show support for protesters who are "risking their lives for free and fair elections."

Also, The New York Times reports that while some senior administration officials like Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton support the president’s approach, they too would like to strike a stronger tone of support for the protesters.

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Whether or not there's another political revolution in Iran — there's no doubt the country has already witnessed a technological revolution.

Iranian officials have been trying to clamp down on the flow of information in all the ways these regimes do — restricting the coverage of western journalists, kicking others out of the country, shutting down web sites.

But it's not working this time — and one of the big reasons is social media networks like Twitter and Facebook. Many of the young demonstrators — 70-percent of Iranians are under 30 — have used these technologies as a tool to coordinate their protests over the election's outcome. They're also posting graphic pictures and videos of the crackdown by officials.

The U.S. State Department points to Twitter as one of the ways Iranians can "get the word out," and officials in this country are even following these social networks. In fact, the government contacted Twitter at one point asking them to delay a planned update that would shut the system down temporarily.

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CIA Director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney is wishing for another terror attack on the U.S. in order to make his point. Panetta tells The New Yorker that Cheney "smells some blood in the water" on the issue of national security.

He suggests Cheney's actions are like "gallows politics" and also calls it "dangerous politics."

Dick Cheney — whom we barely saw or heard from for eight years — has been a very vocal critic of President Obama these past few months… especially when it comes to national security. He has said that the new president is making the U.S. less safe by rolling back Bush era policies.

Cheney has criticized President Obama for ordering the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison and for stopping the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. In a speech last month, Cheney called some of Obama's decisions "unwise in the extreme."

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Sarah Palin didn’t make a speech — but that didn’t stop her from stealing the show at a big Republican fundraising dinner in Washington last night. The Alaska governor’s appearance was a question mark up until the last minute… and followed weeks of an on-again, off-again saga.

Palin had originally been announced as the keynote speaker, but her office said she never confirmed the attendance. Later they wanted to know if she would speak at the dinner; party leaders said she could but then took back the invitation… worried that Palin would upstage Newt Gingrich, the new keynote speaker. Lots of drama.

But Palin, along with her husband Todd, got big cheers from the audience when they were introduced onstage last night; and their table was the only one in the ballroom with a crowd around it.

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In reaching out to the world’s one and a half billion Muslims with today's historic speech, it's unclear if President Obama is also pushing away America's longtime ally Israel.

Speaking in Cairo — the president recognized the U.S.'s unbreakable bond with the Jewish state and the horror of the Holocaust, but also talked about the suffering of the Palestinian people. He described their situation as intolerable and stressed the need for a two-state solution.

President Obama called on Palestinians to abandon violence — pointing to America's own civil rights history and saying it was a "peaceful and determined insistence" that brought about equal rights.

And, he once again called on Israel to stop building settlements; and to allow Palestinians to live and work and develop their society. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already rejected President Obama's call for a settlement freeze.

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As President Obama gets ready to address the Muslim world in Cairo tomorrow, one Republican is accusing him of being too apologetic about America's past mistakes. Mitt Romney refers to it as a "tour of apology," and says that of course the U.S. makes mistakes, but that it’s inappropriate to "go around the world apologizing."

The former — and perhaps future — Republican presidential candidate says there's nothing wrong with showing our respect for the Muslim world. But he thinks President Obama should spend more time talking about the sacrifices the U.S. has made for other countries — like during World War II.

Romney points to an interview that the president gave on Arabic TV where he said the U.S. had dictated to the world; and he says a British newspaper declared Obama the president who’s the most critical of his own country while on foreign soil.

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President Obama made good on a campaign promise Saturday night… by taking his wife on a date to New York City. The president says he promised his wife he would "take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished."

Mr. Obama and the First Lady flew from Washington to New York on a Gulfstream jet, then took a helicopter from the Marine One fleet from JFK airport into Manhattan. The first couple dined in the Village and then headed to Times Square, where they saw 'Joe Turner's Come and Gone' — a show about a man coming to terms with the history of slavery.

New Yorkers seemed to love it all, with crowds eight-deep in places, but critics are accusing the president of insensitivity. The Republican National Committee says as the president prepared to "wing into Manhattan's theater district," GM prepared to file bankruptcy and families across America continue to struggle to pay their bills.

They added that if President Obama wanted to go to the theater… why wasn't the presidential box at the Kennedy Center good enough?

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Former President Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush board Marine One following the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

While Former Vice President Dick Cheney hasn’t been able to keep his mouth shut since leaving office, the former president has been largely silent. Until last night that is.

Speaking in Michigan, George W. Bush repeated Cheney’s claim that the enhanced interrogation program — what some people call “torture” — was legal and helped get valuable information that prevented more terror attacks… and saved lives.

The former president told the crowd of 2,500 people that after 9-11, he vowed to take quote “whatever steps were necessary to protect you.” Bush said after the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he wanted to determine what means were legal to get information from the terror suspect.

Full story

Judge Sonia Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court justice if confirmed.

Republicans are in yet another tough spot – this one when it comes to the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States. Chalk up another brilliant bit of political strategy to our new president.

President Obama’s nominee would be the first Hispanic justice — and only the third woman justice — in the history of the nation’s highest court.

Conservative critics are branding her as a liberal activist judge, and are pointing to her past comments. In 2001, Sotomayor said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Full story

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As millions of Americans head into a long weekend and the unofficial start of summer, consider this: About 28 million Americans, that's a quarter of the work force, don't get any paid vacation. Enter Florida Congressman Alan Grayson — who has introduced the Paid Vacation Act.

The bill would require companies with more than 100 employees to give a week of paid vacation to both full-time and part-time workers who've been with the company for a year. Once the law is in effect three years — they'd have to give two weeks of paid time off; and companies with more than 50 employees would have to give one week vacation.

Grayson, a Democrat, says his bill would double the number of paid vacations in the U.S. It’s also meant to increase worker productivity by having fewer sick days, and to boost tourism — hey, he's from Florida after all.

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While Washington looks at trying to solve the nation’s health care crisis, many Americans aren’t waiting. They are willing to take matters into their own hands by seeking medical treatment elsewhere.

When people are asked if they would consider treatment abroad, assuming the quality was the same and the costs much cheaper, those numbers jump by an average of 12 points.

Medical travel used to be considered a luxury for the rich, but with health care costs at home skyrocketing and an estimated 48 million uninsured Americans, that may no longer be the case. In fact, this poll shows people without insurance are more likely than those with coverage to think about going abroad for medical treatment.

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It's been almost four months since former President Bush left office, and many would like to leave his administration in the past. But that may not be possible since there's a constant dripping of information about what really went on during those eight years.

The latest comes by way of GQ Magazine, which has released a series of cover sheets for intelligence reports written for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon brass during the early days of the Iraq war.

They featured "triumphant, color images" like soldiers praying or in action or a tank at sunset along with Biblical passages. For example: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."

Besides the obvious question of appropriateness, what if these covers had leaked out at the time? The Muslim world could have interpreted the war as a religiously-driven battle against Islam. You think they were upset about Abu Ghraib?

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Nancy Pelosi seems to have a new story every day when it comes to the debate over torture. In fact, more focus is now on Pelosi than on the Bush administration, which authorized the use of waterboarding in the first place.

The Speaker of the House is now claiming that the CIA mislead her during a September 2002 briefing by telling her waterboarding hadn't been used yet on detainees. She says the CIA briefers gave her inaccurate and incomplete information when asked if they lied to her — Pelosi nodded her head 'yes'.

That’s a pretty serious accusation. The CIA says: "It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress." A former senior intelligence official says it's inconceivable that the CIA would not have talked about interrogation methods already being used.

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Health care reform won’t come cheap, and that’s why lawmakers are considering higher taxes on everything from alcohol and cigarettes to junk food and soda as a way to pay for it. The Senate Finance Committee is looking into how to pay for this massive overhaul, which could cost $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

Several experts are suggesting taxes on bad behavior, including a $2 dollar tax on a pack of cigarettes and a higher excise tax on alcohol.

Politico reports that the ranking Republican on the committee, Senator Chuck Grassley is nixing the idea of taxing soda and sugary drinks. But it’s easy to see why so-called sin taxes are appealing — taxing cigarettes, junk foods and alcohol could raise $600 billion over 10 years.

A recent poll found support among Americans for imposing such taxes to help pay for health care reform. The Kaiser Family Foundation survey shows 61 percent of those polled say they would be in favor of raising taxes on items that are thought to be unhealthy — like cigarettes, alcohol, junk food and soda. 37 percent are opposed.

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When it comes to nominating the next Supreme Court justice, President Obama is likely under pressure from interest groups, lawmakers, you name it…

But it turns out Most Americans aren’t too concerned about the gender, race or ethnicity of the person who will fill Justice David Souter’s seat on the bench.

A new Gallup poll shows 64 percent of those polled say it doesn’t matter to them if the next Supreme Court justice is a woman. 68 percent don’t care if that person is Hispanic; and 74 percent say it doesn’t matter if the next justice is black.

It’s widely expected that President Obama will nominate a woman. Currently the Court only includes one female justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has been battling cancer. Yet only six percent of Americans say it’s essential that the president appoint a woman.

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