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Now that BP has gone from 1000-5000 barrels to 12,000-19,000 barrels, to 35,000 to 60,000 to 62,000 a day, Rachel feels about the same way I do about this. The latest line of B.S. from our government is that the oil and those dispersants they put out there with them are mostly gone now. Yeah right.

As Maddow reports they're now claiming 25% of the oil was boomed or skimmed, 25% evaporated or dissolved, 24% was dispersed through "human operations" and there's 26% residual that's still out there and they swear to god they're going to clean that up.

They're pretending some of these waters are safe to fish in now as well. I'll believe that when Thad Allen, all of the CEO's from BP and our EPA head start eating that fish for part of their daily diet on camera.

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This is really just disgusting. There's no way in hell all of those millions of gallons of oil and dispersants that poured in to the Gulf are just gone. Billy Nungesser, President of Plaquemines Parish, LA is at the end of his rope here and I don't blame him. BP is saying that they can't find any oil and are pulling assets out of the gulf for cleanup and the Coast Guard is letting them do it.

Digby has more on this latest dog and pony show from our media -- Dismissing The Gusher:

I posted yesterday about the emerging meme that the BP disaster was not big deal and today Brad Johnson at Grist puts that meme in perspective. Read on...

As the AC360 segment notes, Billy Nungesser isn't buying this either. They went out there and saw for themselves how much oil is still on the water.

UPDATE: Here's an example of what the residents in Grand Isle are dealing with. The Asphalt Beach in Louisiana (Photos)

KAYE: Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the federal response, said today the nearly constant flights that check for surface oil on the water from the air are barely detecting any oil, beyond thin sheens -- this as BP's incoming CEO, Bob Dudley, said it's time to start scaling back cleanup efforts.

At the same time, he said BP will not abandon Gulf residents once the well is permanently sealed.

But not everyone is buying that promise.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser joins me now.

And Billy, I want to play for you exactly what Bob Dudley said today, and then we will get your response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT DUDLEY: In terms of the effort, no, it's not too soon for a scale-back.

We haven't permanently, finally killed the well. I don't think we will see any more oil going into the beaches.

And where there's no oil on the beaches, you probably don't need people walking up and down with hazmat suits. So, you will see that kind of a pullback, but commitment, absolutely no pullback.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So, is it time, in your opinion, to scale back on the cleanup efforts?

BILLY NUNGESSER: Absolutely not.

You know, he might be talking about the beaches in Florida. Louisiana is getting slammed. For the last two days, we have oil out there all over, same places and other places we didn't have oil.

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In his New Rules segment, Bill would like us to quit worrying about private sector jobs in the oil industry among others and start making some government jobs producing alternative energy instead. Bill I'm pretty sure those oil rig workers would be happy to be doing something else along with a whole lot of other Americans if the good paying jobs were there. Sadly there's a whole bunch of new "oil industry workers" cleaning up this toxic mess that would rather not be working for them, but don't have too many other choices right now with their previous livelihoods destroyed and that are getting sick as a result of it.

I'm not sure how much worse this has to get before our politicians start treating this as a national emergency and take some of Bill's advice with really putting some money into alternatives.

No more Real Time until September. This was the last show of the season.

From GoLeft.tv Pap and Randi Rhodes Discuss BP Oil Spill Lawsuit:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he would be launching a criminal investigation into the activities of BP that led to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But can we trust an AG who worked at one of the biggest corporate defense firms in the world? Mike Papantonio appears on The Randi Rhodes Show to take on BP, as well as explain the basics of his class action suit against BP.

Mike and Randi both think BP is going to get taken over by one of the other oil companies.

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CBS legal correspondent Sharyl Attkisson on Face the Nation discussed their investigative report that revealed the latest estimates on the amount of oil pouring into the Gulf from the government are being low-balled, contrary to Admiral Thad Allen's statements earlier in the same program.

How The Oil Leak Estimates Got Low-Balled:

Just last week, the Interior Department released a range of 12-to-19,000 barrels a day -- up to four times what the government and BP had claimed. That's 504,000 to 798,000 gallons each day. That's bad enough. But it turns out that's not exactly what the scientists conducting the analysis found.

Sources tell CBS News that 12-19,000 barrels a day is actually the minimum believed to be leaking from the well based on the most "conservative assumptions." The upper end of the range, a maximum, hasn't yet been released. But those facts were lost somewhere in the translation between the scientists and the Interior Department press release. Read on...

Attkisson also explained how the differences in the estimates could mean a difference in the amount of fines BP ultimately pays.

Transcript via CBS below the fold.

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Making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows, Admiral Thad Allen talked about attempts to fight the effects of the BP oil spill.

"This is an insidious enemy that's attacking all of our shores. It's holding the Gulf at hostage, basically," he told CNN's Candy Crowly.

On CBS, Allen talked about the "long-term campaign" to fight the spill that will likely last into the Fall.

ABC's Jake Tapper asked the admiral about reports that BP and the Coast Guard were preventing journalists from reporting on the spill.

TAPPER: Lastly, I saw firsthand when I was down in Louisiana over the weekend, all the workers there, whether they work for the governor or for BP or for private contractors who work for BP, they've all been told not to talk to the press, not to talk to the public about their work. Shouldn't they be allowed to share with the public the work that they're doing?

ALLEN: I put out a written directive and I can provide it for the record that says the media will have uninhibited access anywhere we're doing operations, except for two things, if it's a security or safety problem. That is my policy. I'm the national incident commander.

TAPPER: Well, I can tell you firsthand people are not -- people are not following that.

ALLEN: You take (ph) the information and you tell me where it's at, and we'll get the word to them.

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The worst fears of one conservationist may be coming true.

Admiral Thad Allen said Friday that the cap placed over the leaking well was only collecting oil at a rate of 42,000 gallons a day. Recent estimates put the flow at 500,000 to a million gallons a day.

That figure may have increased by 20 percent after the pipe at the top of the blowout preventer was cut off during BP's latest attempt to staunch the flow.

"If the cap doesn't work, we're going to have three times the amount of oil in the Gulf of Mexico," conservationist Rick Steiner told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Thursday.

As much as 46 million gallons have already leaked into the Gulf. If the "cut and cap" operation fails there could be more than 138 million gallons of oil spilled before a relief well is finished in August.

Even that estimate may be conservative. Some have said that worst case scenario is that the leak could last until Christmas.

Steiner complained that it's hard to know the true scope of the leak and the effectiveness of the cap since BP is not allowing independent experts to monitor their progress. "The only people in the ROV operating room for this project are BP, and their contractors for the federal agencies," he said.

"Honestly we can't believe a thing BP says and a lot of people are starting to question what they're hearing out of the administration simply because both have their own vested interests here," said Steiner.

The marine conservationist has requested to be present in the ROV operating room to observe the procedures. "I've asked Admiral Allen and the EPA administrator to put me in the room," Steiner told Olbermann.

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Well isn't this lovely... Mr. Tell BP "I'm Your Daddy" James Carville apparently ran into BP CEO Tony Hayward and Admiral Thad Allen at dinner in Louisiana. After all the screaming he did at President Obama to get tough with BP and tell them who "the daddy" is and after numerous public temper tantrums about the response to this disaster in the Gulf, his description of the meeting to Wolf Blitzer on yesterday's The Situation Room sounds rather chummy to me.

BLITZER: Let's bring in James Carville. He's arrived from New Orleans. James, you've had some exciting moments over these past several weeks. Some of them too exciting. But tell our viewers what happened last night. You went out to dinner in New Orleans.

CARVILLE: I had actually driven up to Baton Rouge for a fund-raiser, the Congressman running for the Senate. And I was coming back and I called Ronny and Mike, two of my close friend whose work with me who work in the mayor's office. I said meet me at 1179. Let's get some dinner.

BLITZER: That's a local restaurant.

CARVILLE: It's a very kind of popular local Italian place. Mr. Joe is a very well known guy around town. I walk in and somebody says, hey, that's Admiral Allen having dinner over there, so I go over because we had talked to each other on the phone and we were going to hook up and I said, admiral, you know, how are you doing?

BLITZER: He said, hey, sit down. When an admiral sits down, you sit down. He said do you know who I'm having dinner with. I said absolutely. It's Tony Hayward.

CARVILLE: The CEO of BP.

BLITZER: The CEO of BP. So we had a pleasant conversation. I talked about working in Columbia and was going down to see my friend that I worked for. And he and Admiral Allen spent some time in Columbia with the coast guard drug interdiction and Tony at BP.

CARVILLE: Let me just set the scene. It's Tony Hayward, Thad Allen and James Carville, the three of you. You've been quite critical of Tony Hayward, everybody at BP. That must have been a little tense, that exchange that you had it.

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Trying to give merit to the right wing meme that the British Petroleum oil spill is somehow "Obama's Katrina", Chris Wallace rolls out a time line which implies that the Obama administration did not respond immediately to the disaster. Sec. Napolitano and Sec. Salazar pushed back and explained how the administration responded to the disaster from "the first hours of the explosion".

Media Matters has a detailed timeline of their own up to rebut this nonsense as well. Memo to media: Timeline contradicts "Obama's Katrina" claim:

A timeline of events following the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill belies the absurd media claim that the spill represents "Obama's Katrina."

April 20 (10 p.m.): Oil rig explosion. An April 21 ABCNews.com article reported, "An overnight explosion in the Gulf of Mexico rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast, sending spectacular bursts of flame into the sky. The fires were still raging today." The U.S. Coast Guard's National Oil and Hazardous Substances Response System assigns primary responsibility for cleaning up oil spills to the spiller as the responsible party.

April 21: Deputy Secretary of Interior, Coast Guard dispatched to region. An April 22 White House statement noted that following a briefing with President Obama, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, "Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes was dispatched to the region yesterday to assist with coordination and response." The Coast Guard announced that four units were responding to the fire, with additional units en route. Read on...

Transcript below the fold.

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