If you didn't get a chance to see this special on PBS this week, and you've got some spare time to check it out on line instead, I'd highly recommend making some time to watch this latest documentary from Ken Burns, The Dust Bowl.

From PBS: THE DUST BOWL:

THE DUST BOWL chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of the "Great Plow-Up," followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Vivid interviews with twenty-six survivors of those hard times, combined with dramatic photographs and seldom seen movie footage, bring to life stories of incredible human suffering and equally incredible human perseverance. It is also a morality tale about our relationship to the land that sustains us—a lesson we ignore at our peril.

You can watch episode two at the link above. The footage and pictures of those storms and their aftermath is just simply amazing and terrifying. Ken Burns has done a lot of really wonderful work with documenting our country's history and this latest from him is no exception.

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Rand Paul must feel like a broken record right now, because he pretty much repeated verbatim during his interview with Neil Cavuto this Monday what he said on CNN last week -- don't borrow money to pay for FEMA and let local organizations and churches handle disasters like hurricane response. Because we all know the people who just had their homes destroyed with no electricity are the best prepared to respond to huge natural disasters.

As we all know well around here, the apple didn't fall too far from the tree with this one -- Ron Paul to Tornado Victims: You're on Your Own. It's like father, like son when it comes to telling Americans to go pick themselves up by their own bootstraps. I wonder if Paul thinks the local churches had the equipment available to go pump water out of the subways and tunnels in New York?

Rand Paul: FEMA is 'inefficient':

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky held firm on his stance Thursday that local government provides better service when disaster strikes than the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

This summer, the Republican senator made headlines when he held up a bill re-authorizing the National Flood Insurance Program by attaching a non-related "personhood" amendment that called for defining life as beginning at conception.

Asked why he worked to stall the flood bill, Paul said the government was spending too much money it didn't have.

"I have always maintained that FEMA should exist on money that comes in as revenue, but not on borrowed money," the fiscal conservative said Thursday on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."

Paul, a longtime critic of the agency, argued the U.S. should instead fund FEMA with the money it sends overseas in foreign aid. He also argued that local communities - as well as private groups such as the Salvation Army and the Red Cross - do a better job than federal agencies in the immediate aftermath of large-scale emergencies.

The Republican senator shared a story about the local response in cities devastated by tornadoes earlier this year in Kentucky, saying "the churches stepped up."

"Two thousand responders a day were being fed by churches, and the people were being put up in houses," he said. "So I don't think this is entirely a government response. I think it's important to really laud the private folks, as well as the churches who step up."

While he maintained "government is inefficient" in major disasters, he added, "I'm not saying government doesn't have a role."

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman did some follow up to Al Jazeera's reporting on the state of the Gulf of Mexico and the fishing industry there, two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Execs Escape Punishment as Fallout from Disaster Continues to Impact Sea Life:

Two years since the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, we look at its impact on the Gulf of Mexico’s residents and wildlife even as no BP officials have faced criminal prosecution for the disaster. Eleven workers died when the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, and almost five million barrels of crude oil leaked into the ocean before the well was plugged after 51 days. BP maintains the Gulf is rapidly recovering thanks to the company’s efforts, but Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail describes how scientists say shrimp, fish and crabs in the Gulf of Mexico have been deformed by oil and chemicals released during the spill cleanup effort. Meanwhile, ProPublica’s environmental reporter, Abrahm Lustgarten, says the company failed to learn from past mistakes that could have helped avoid the explosion. He is the author of the new book, "Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster."

Full transcript is available at the link above. Our corporate media actually did a small amount of reporting on this news after Al Jazeera broke their story on the diseased fish and shrimp coming out of the Gulf, but I'll be surprised to see much more follow up from sources other than those like Al Jazeera and Democracy Now.

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Ed Schultz didn't have any kind words for "unmitigated disaster" Dick Cheney for this bit of projection at the Republican state convention in Wyoming over the weekend where he attacked President Obama and issued dire warnings to his fellow Republicans about the prospects of his reelection -- Unmitigated Disaster Dick Cheney Calls Obama An ‘Unmitigated Disaster’.

It is Decoration Day weekend in Alabama, a time when families gather to decorate the headstones of their loved ones and ancestors. But this weekend is seeing a lot of Alabama families hold funerals after the second most destructive tornado event ever left claw marks in the red soil of North Alabama.

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I've just got to wonder if it's possible to find a bigger political hack than Louisiana Senator David Vitter. Mr. Drill-baby-drill Diaper-boy apparently thinks that unless the President just did a few more photo ops down in Louisiana and caused who knows what kind of problems for anyone within ten miles or more of him with the security involved when a President of the United States goes anywhere, the media isn't going to cover what's going on.

That or the more likely scenario which is that he's just taking a cheap shot for political purposes and trying to put President Obama in the same box as George Bush who couldn't be interrupted from his vacation to even bother watching news coverage during Hurricane Katrina.

I've got a ton of criticisms for how this disaster has been managed. How many photo ops the President has done in Louisiana isn't one of them. If David Vitter is worried about this story being moved off of the front page, he's got ample opportunity to make sure it doesn't himself as he did here.

I'd prefer Vitter be asked if he thinks the industry that's he's taking that campaign cash from was regulated properly so something like this doesn't happen again rather than listening to Chris Wallace give him a chance to just play politics with this disaster.

WALLACE: Senator Vitter, let's get to this question of the cleanup, because both of you are exactly right.

VITTER: Sure.

WALLACE: Even if not a drop more oil is spilled into the gulf, according to some estimates...

VITTER: Right.

WALLACE: ... as much as 200 million gallons of oil are already in the water.

Senator Vitter, how long will it...

VITTER: Right.

WALLACE: ... take to clean that up? And how long will it take to restore your state's coastline and especially, as we're seeing here on the screen, that very fragile marsh land?

VITTER: Well, ultimately, it will take years, Chris, and I hope everyone in the nation realizes that so we just don't forget about this story once the flow is stopped.

I also hope President Obama realizes that. He hasn't been to Louisiana since June 4th. I'm afraid he's decided to deal with this issue at least politically by not coming back here and trying to move it off of the front page rather than dealing with the situation forcefully.

Again, even if this flow is stopped permanently, we have major challenges ahead, number one in terms of cleanup, number two in terms of economic devastation, including the drilling moratorium.

WALLACE: But let me just follow up with you there, Senator Vitter.

VITTER: Sure.

WALLACE: Why do you -- why do you say that he's moving it off? I know you were very critical -- and we'll get to Mr. Nungesser in a second -- initially in how the Obama administration is handling this. Are you saying they're trying to sweep it under the rug now?

VITTER: I get the impression that is the president's political motivation, his way of dealing with this. He was coming here on a pretty regular basis trying to deal with the issues personally. He hasn't done that in Louisiana since June 4th. That's personally disappointing to me.

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Keith Olbermann talked to John Wathen from The Waterkeeper Alliance who has been photographing the disastrous environmental impact of the oil spill in the Gulf. His blog is at http://bpoilslick.blogspot.com/. I've been watching some of the video from his site for a while now and was glad to see Keith finally give their work some attention.

OLBERMANN: Some of the most devastating pictures yet of the extent of the damage being caused by this oil disaster is coming from an Alabama conservationist named John Wathen, who has been flying over the spill whenever he can to document independently exactly what is taking place. Footage shot last week posted on YouTube, this gentleman revealed that the devastation is worse than BP has been telling us and it possible that it is more extensive than many of us had feared.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN WATHEN, ALABAMA CONSERVATIONIST: The further we got in the Gulf and the more consistent it came, at 17 miles out, it was obvious that the entire Gulf was covered at this point.

At 23 miles out, we encountered the heaviest sheen yet. The water was a deep purple, maroon, blue. It looked almost like a rainbow. The scope of this is beyond belief. It will take years at this rate to gather up even a portion of the oil that‘s on the surface today.

Some of it looks more like bruised internal organs of the human body than the surface of the ocean. And yet that‘s what it is.

The first time I came out, I saw a fire, there was only one. Today, when we got here, there were four. Within a couple of passes, there were seven.

From the size of these fires, it seems as though we‘re not only trying to kill everything in the Gulf of Mexico but everything that flies over it as well. This toxic environment can‘t be good for the birds that fly over the Gulf. And certainly nothing can live in these rainbows of death that cover the entire horizon.

As we look closer, we saw this pod of dolphins, obviously struggling just to breathe.

Continue reading »

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More bad news for Louisiana.

Giant Oil Slick Headed For Grand Isle:

A government official says it's the first major threat to Grand Isle, Louisiana in three weeks. A massive oil slick, described as "a tremendous plume" by the official, on a direct course to hit the Gulf Coast in 24-48 hours.

The slick, photographed by a Fox Cameraman aboard a chartered helicopter, is 20 miles out in the Gulf but headed towards land. It's said to be 32 miles long and several miles wide, with "fingers" of thick crude stretching in different directions both at sea level and below.

The slick may be broken up by chemical dispersants dropped from planes, but the layers of defenses established by BP and government officials, including containment boom, barges and skimmer ships may not be enough to keep the oil from reaching land.

It's expected to make impact by Monday night or Tuesday morning.

And in the meantime, the oil is hitting Mississippi as well, and as Think Progress reports, Haley Barbour had some other priorities.

BP Slick Reached Mississippi While Haley Barbour Went Fundraising In Washington:

As significant amounts of oil from the BP disaster moved past Mississippi’s barrier islands this week, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) partied in Washington DC to raise money for Republicans. On Wednesday, boats were skimming oil near the Petit Bois Island at the Mississippi-Alabama border. Barbour decided to attend to his duties as a political fundraiser.

...Continuing his record of dismissing the magnitude of the BP disaster, Barbour said on Friday after he returned to Mississippi that major slicks miles long within the Mississippi Sound “shouldn’t be a cause for alarm.”

...The system for responding to a major oil spill depends on coordination between the federal government, the responsible oil company, and the state government. Out of the 6,000 National Guard troops President Obama has authorized for response in Mississippi, Haley Barbour has mobilized only 58. However, he has declared today to be a Day of Prayer “to remember the Mississippi Gulf Coast.” Read on...

I guess we'll see how much longer he's going to pretend the oil isn't hitting Mississippi's coastline when he returns.

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Boy was this one pathetic interview. This Sunday on CNN's State of the Union Candy Crowley brings on Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski who is one of the top recipients of campaign donations from the oil and gas industries, who recently blocked the Senate from raising the liability cap for oil companies and that just attempted to gut the Clean Air Act and allows her to deny the assertion that Republicans are the party of big oil without challenging her.

I realize that it would make all of these politicians uncomfortable to be challenged about who they're taking money from and how it affects their voting record, but I thought that was what the press was supposed to be doing. Not worrying about whether they're going to come back on their shows again for another "exclusive" interview where they're allowed to lie with no accountability and misinform the public. When you can't challenge someone who's as obviously bought and sold as Murkowski, that's really pathetic.

CROWLEY: Congressman Joe Barton, obviously in the hearings with B.P.

The Democrats have taken this and run with it, and we are now hearing the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, saying this was not a gaffe; this is the philosophy of the Republican Party; they are big oil; Wall Street; they are the party of corporations.

What is your response to that?

MURKOWSKI: Couldn't be more wrong -- couldn't be more wrong. The statement that Representative Barton made was wrong, absolutely wrong. He has since apologized for it.

But for -- for the White House, for the administration to be, kind of, running with this as the issue -- let's not forget; we had 11 people die. We have an environmental disaster unfolding. We have an economic disaster that is unfolding.

Let's not be distracted by saying, you know, Joe Barton made this gaffe or this -- this inappropriate comment. Let's focus on what we need to do, which is getting relief to the Gulf, making sure that they have every asset possible, making sure that we've got a claims compensation system that works for them. Let's focus on providing what the people of the Gulf need, not pointing fingers back and forth and saying, oh, you know, what you said was wrong.

CROWLEY: B.P. does a lot of business in Alaska. It brings in a lot of revenue. After watching this fiasco, you had some of your own in Alaska, too, that were B.P.-prompted. Do you trust B.P.?

MURKOWSKI: Well, I tell you, B.P.'s operations in Alaska have all been on land. So you've got the offshore/onshore differences. We have had issues with B.P., serious issues where it was clear that they failed in their responsibility as operators. It was unacceptable. They have been fined mightily.

Now, they have said that they have improved their efforts. That needs to be demonstrated. That needs to be demonstrated. And unfortunately, what we are seeing in the Gulf, and as we learn a little bit more every day about what may have happened, this does not reflect well on B.P.

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Haley Barbour backtracked from his previous statement that the $20 billion escrow account would make it less likely that BP will pay for everything in regards to the damages from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Now that he's found out the money will only go out in payments of $5 billion a year, he's much less worried his campaign donor will go out of business any time soon.

GREGORY: Governor, you--Governor Barbour, you've been concerned about the idea of this escrow fund, this $20 billion fund. Why?

BARBOUR: Right. Well, I thought that they were talking about taking $20 billion from BP all at once, and my fear was if you took $20 billion from them all at once, put it in an escrow account, then they wouldn't have the working capital to generate the revenue to pay us. I think the president was smart, and I congratulate him and BP that they reached an agreement. Instead of $20 billion taken out of that working capital all at once, it's actually going to be $5 billion this year, $5 billion the next year, $5 billion the following year and $5 billion the fourth year. That makes sure--as Mary Landrieu says, we want to make sure that BP stays in business, generates the revenues that will pay what they owe the states and our citizens. And I think the--I don't know if it's a compromise or not--the agreement they worked out not to do all the $20 billion, put it in an escrow account all at once, means that we're much more likely to get everything paid by BP, who, by the way, is supposed to pay everything.

I'm still wondering when Barbour will admit that there is a need for the fund in his state and that the oil has washed up on the shores of Mississippi as well.