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Anyone else going to be shocked if this is not caused by the massive amount of oil and dispersants these poor animals have been exposed to? There has been almost a media blackout in any coverage of what's going on in the Gulf nationally.

More Dead Dolphin Babies Found along Gulf Coast:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the number of dead dolphins found since Jan. 1 in the area affected by last year's oil spill is now 67, with 35 of them premature or newborn calves.

NOAA regional spokeswoman Kim Amendola says five dead calves were reported Friday in Mississippi or Alabama.

Scientists are looking into whether any unusual deaths in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill area may be related to toxins from oil or dispersants. However, they're also investigating whether it could be related to the cold weather or a disease.

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It's nice to see this getting some attention in the media again instead of being drowned out completely by nonsense. We're going to be dealing with this disaster for years to come. From Mike Papantonio's blog at Ring of Fire.

Papantonio: Cenk and Pap Go After BP:

The oil just won’t go away. NOAA was forced to admit that they were wrong about 75% of the oil being gone from the Gulf, and they now say that 75% is still in the Gulf. On top of that, BP is attempting to settle claims quickly by forcing those in need of money to sign documents agreeing to not sue the oil giant. Mike Papantonio discusses all this and more on MSNBC’s The Ed Show.

It's amazing how people change their story once you get them under oath isn't it? BP oil spill: US scientist retracts assurances over success of cleanup:

NOAA's Bill Lehr says three-quarters of the oil that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon rig is still in the Gulf environment while scientists identify 22-mile plume in ocean depths

White House claims that the worst of the BP oil spill was over were undermined yesterday when a senior government scientist said three-quarters of the oil was still in the Gulf environment and a research study detected a 22-mile plume of oil in the ocean depths.

Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) departed from an official report from two weeks ago which suggested the majority of the oil had been captured or broken down.

"I would say most of that is still in the environment," Lehr, the lead author of the report, told the house energy and commerce committee.

The growing evidence that the White House painted an overly optimistic picture when officials claimed two weeks ago the remaining oil in the Gulf was rapidly breaking down fuelled a sense of outrage in the scientific community that government agencies are hiding data and spinning the science of the oil spill. No new oil has entered the Gulf since 15 July, but officials said yesterday the well is unlikely to be sealed for good until mid-September.

Under questioning from the committee chair, Ed Markey, Lehr revised down the amount of oil that went into the Gulf to 4.1m barrels, from an earlier estimate of 4.9m, noting that 800,000 barrels were siphoned off directly from the well. Read on...

From The Colbert Report -- "As the shrimp season begins, Michael Blum discusses the human health risks caused by the BP oil spill."

Colbert: That's right. Our inspectors are so good they can detect shrimp taint by smell. Do you know how hard that is? I need a jewelers loop to even see shrimp taint. Although I pride myself on my ability to smell moth balls.

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We've got an economy that's a mess, people who have been unemployed forever that need jobs, massive flooding in Pakistan, millions of gallons of oil and dispersants still floating in the water in the Gulf of Mexico and what is the media spending hours upon hours covering? That ginned up non-controversy over the Islamic center near ground zero and now a new poll that shows about one in five Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim. I wonder where they got that idea?

I hate that they're spending this much time on this nonsense that most people don't care about but if they're going to do it, we need to be pushing back against the lies and point out who's helping to spread them and hold the corporate media accountable when they help to push the latest right wing meme of the day and give it legitimacy.

During John King's show on CNN, Paul Begala says it's not CNN that is attributing to those poll numbers.

BEGALA: Mostly, no. You're right to just observe that as contrasted with Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter for that matter or certainly George W. Bush, this Christian president talks about his Christianity less. That perhaps makes him more like say George Bush's father, a devout Christian, a fine man who just didn't like to wear it on his sleeve as much as maybe some others.

No, in that survey, the Pew poll, most, the vast majority of people who think he's a Muslim. When you ask them why do you think that they say because of the media. And not to put too fine a point on it, they don't mean CNN, John. They mean the kook right wing media that has been attacking this president. It's fine to attack him on issues. But they're trying to attack him with any kind of crazy conspiracy theory they can.

I'd beg to differ.

A little later in the show John King brings on evangelical leader Franklin Graham who suggests that the "confusion" is being caused because President Obama was "born a Muslim" and of course if he says he's a Christian now (wink... wink) we'll just have to take him at his word that he is (but he might really be a dirty Kenyan Muslim usurper... you never know).

There are plenty of places where these rumors are being spread such as email chains, on right wing talk radio and on Fox News, but interviews like this aren't helping matters any. We got zero push back from John King against Graham's nonsense. He's really good at the false equivalency "you decide" game where he lets his viewers figure out for themselves who's telling the truth and who's spouting nonsense that should have been stopped in their tracks for telling lies but wasn't. Heaven forbid that might not make for a polite interview and we couldn't have that sort of incivility now could we?

Does anyone think John King didn't know exactly what he was going to get from Franklin Graham before he came on the air? Here's some of what happened during his encounter with then presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama back in 2008.

Franklin Graham to Obama: Are You A Muslim? (And How Obama Courted Hagee's Publisher):

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BP's COO Doug Suttles apparently thinks that most Americans are completely ignorant or that even if they aren't, it's not going to matter because the media and our government are going to allow them to cover up the amount of damage done by this catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Suttles gave a press conference this weekend where he downplayed the dangers of the dispersants that have been poured into the Gulf and laid it squarely back on the feet of our government for allowing them to poison the waters. He also claimed that he'd eat the seafood coming out of the Gulf and thinks it's safe. I'd like to personally see for myself someone catch some fish from those waters full of chemicals and watch him eat it and feed it to his children if that's true.

Laffy over at The Political Carnival has been keeping in touch with whistleblower and former EPA investigator Hugh Kaufman and here's her latest take on the media coverage of this disaster and the media downplaying the use of dispersants.

“Shame on LSU, shame on Rush Limbaugh, shame on CNN, shame on Anderson Cooper!” + VIDEO

As she noted in this post as well, I'm not sure how much of what BP is being allowed to get away with has to do with fears of what would happen on Wall Street if their company went down and the government's horrid response to this disaster, but it makes about as much sense as anything else I've read and has also been my gut feeling as to why they haven't done more to keep BP in check as well. All I know is that watching what has gone on has made me feel almost as sick as I did when I watched the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The people in the Gulf deserve better than this and it looks like they're being hung out to dry again.

This time they might be poisoning all of us if they want to tell us those waters are safe for fishing now. I want to hear that the fish being pulled out of that water along with the water they're saying is safe to fish in doesn't have Corexit in it or petroleum products from the spill. I don't believe for one minute that millions of gallons of oil and dispersants just disappeared and those waters are now safe to fish in and swim in.

VIDEO: “Clues to the Obama Administration’s Passive Response to the BP Disaster”

Transcript of the Suttles press conference below the fold.

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h/t Mugsy:

As if the dispersants themselves weren't toxic enough, the 1.8 million gallons of Corexit 9500 (oil dispersant) sprayed on BP's spill in the Gulf of Mexico breaks down the oil, releasing some of the most toxic chemicals already in the oil into the water, dramatically increasing the toxicity of the spill.

From NBC News Scientists: BP dispersants have made spill more toxic:

Amid growing concern about the use of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, a group of scientists working for law firms suing BP says their testing indicates that the dispersants being used to break up the oil are making this spill even more toxic to marine life.

Dr. William Sawyer, a toxicologist, is part of a team of scientists hired by law firms — led by Smith Stag of New Orleans — that are representing Louisiana fishermen and environmentalists.

The scientists collected and analyzed globs of oil, sand, and water from more than a dozen sites in four states along the Gulf.

Sawyer told NBC News that the findings are troubling. "We now have compelling evidence that the dispersant has enhanced and increased the toxicity from the spill," he said.

Last week, a group of independent scientists called for an "immediate halt" to the use of dispersants. In what was called a "consensus statement," they warned that dispersants pose "grave risks to marine life and human health." Read on...

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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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Lawrence O'Donnell talks to EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman about the claims that the oil is now "disappearing" from the Gulf of Mexico. There's no way in hell that much oil just goes away. Digby's got more on this here The Good News Is The Poison:

BP seems to have ably headed off the worst of the PR disaster by keeping the worst of the oil more or less off the shoreline. The actual disaster may have been made worse by the use of toxic chemicals. So it's all good.

That's what they want us to believe anyway. We need more Hugh Kaufman's out there to counter this nonsense.

O‘DONNELL: Today is day 100 of the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, and a whistle-blower has come forth from the Environmental Protection Agency, charging the EPA with helping BP to downplay the environmental impact of its supposed cleanup efforts. You will meet him in a moment.

But if the cleanup has been compared to letting the criminal clean up the crime scene—we begin our fourth story tonight with news about the cops.

“The Washington Post” reports that federal agents who call themselves the BP squad are investigating whether BP, Transocean, or Halliburton, even before the blowout, lied to regulators, obstructed justice, or faked the test results for their equipment—including the blowout preventer that, needless to say, failed to prevent a blowout. Specifically, sources told “The Post,” investigators are asking whether inspectors at the Minerals Management Agency went easy on the rig and why.

BP, yesterday, revealed that it is now the subject of an investigation by the SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, into something—no word yet on exactly whether that is related to the spill.
And while Jane Lubchenco, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says the oil is becoming harder to find, the Natural Resources Defense Council‘s annual report on beaches found no downturn in the number of beach closures or advisories since the spill was capped. The NRDC reports that the number of beach closures and advisories this year, 2,200, is roughly 10 times more than last year. And it predicts that the impact will last for years.

And in a cable news exclusive, that whistle-blower we mentioned joins us now. EPA senior policy analyst, Hugh Kaufman, is a veteran and legend of the agency, having had a hand in Love Canal and the creation of the Superfund and helped expose the EPA cover-up of air quality at ground zero.
Mr. Kaufman, what should we know about the dispersants used in the Gulf that the EPA isn‘t telling us?

KAUFMAN: Well, first of all, the dispersants mixed with the oil and the water is extremely toxic. Sweden has done studies on this. Israel has done studies on this.

And the only real purpose of using so many dispersants with the oil was to cover up the volume of oil that was released from that well. So, that and lying about how much is coming out was a mechanism to help BP save billions of dollars in fines.

O‘DONNELL: Should they have not used dispersants at all?

KAUFMAN: That‘s correct. If they did not use dispersants, they would have been able to get most of that oil off of the surface and would not have endangered all of the fish and ecosystem underneath the water that now will be affected for decades on down the line.

I was listening to some of the, quote, “experts” who are being paid by BP at universities who are saying that the oil has disappeared. It hasn‘t disappeared. It‘s throughout thousands of square miles in the Gulf, mixed with dispersants, and because the temperatures down there are so cold, they‘re going to be around for decades.

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CNN aired a special this weekend Behind the scenes of 'Rescue: Saving the Gulf' which didn't particularly interest me since I thought it looked like a bit of PR for BP by the network. But as Laffy noted over at The Political Carnival, CNN may have just documented something they didn't mean to if they were trying to do either BP or the government any favors.

UPDATED: “CNN may not know what they have documented.” + VIDEO:

Hugh Kaufman just messaged me the following, along with a link to the video below:

CNN may not know what they have documented. Will anybody tell them? Will they figure it out? …

CNN documents, on this documentary airing tonight and tomorrow, that the “air smell’s [sic] bad” (it’s full of carcinogenic and other hazardous material in oil and dispersants). None of the cleanup workers are wearing respirators and nobody is testing the air.

Just like 911 WTC, these workers are gonna be in trouble 5, 10, and 20 years down the line.

Where is EPA and OSHA?

I thought the same thing when I was watching the special. Where are the respirators for these workers and for the CNN reporter for that matter? Gloves, hardhats, boots and safety vests don't cut it with protecting them from this toxic sludge. I posted Hugh Kaughman's interview on Democracy Now the other day talking about how toxic that crude and those dispersants are.

Here's CNN's feedback page if you'd like to contact them and ask them why their reporter wasn't wearing the proper protective gear to be around that mess they're cleaning up and why they didn't bother to ask why the workers weren't wearing the right gear in their special.

Transcript below the fold.

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A security contractor who was once responsible for keeping reporters away from cleanup workers is now coming forward to blow the whistle on BP.

Adam Dillon claims he was fired by the oil company after he took pictures showing how dispersants were being used in the Gulf.

WDSU anchor Scott Walker first met Dillon in June while trying to report on cleanup efforts on Grand Isle, Louisiana.

"When you met me, and you were straight with me and I saw the way that you were being treated, I told you I wished I could tell you more," Dillon told Walker in an interview Friday. "And after the way BP treated me, I'm telling you now that you deserve an answer, and that's why you're getting an answer."

Dillon maintains that he was fired several weeks later. "I took pictures of something and I brought it to the attention of the command structure and whatever I took pictures of, 12 hours later I was gone," he said.

"Dillon believes the photos showed how dispersants were being used in the Gulf of Mexico," reported WDSU. The former security contractor did not provide specifics about how photos of dispersants might have angered BP management.

"What this company is doing to this country right now is just wrong," said Dillon.

WDSU did not find anyone at BP willing to comment on Dillon's dismissal.