http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1291693/Wealthy-property-tycoon-jailed-claiming-28-000-benefits-posing-struggling-single-mother.html

Jindal says oil spill should be combated like a war

Saturday, July 03, 2010, 12:21 PM

Allison Good

The Times Picayune

Gov. Bobby Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser called on the federal government Friday to treat the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico as a war. 

"We saw a lot of the boom rendered ineffective, and a lot of it was washed ashore and broken apart," said Jindal, who arrived at the news conference at Cypress Grove Marina in Venice following a boat tour of Redfish Bay. "With Hurricane Alex, we saw oil go above that boom, so we need to fight this 15 to 20 miles off the coast before it gets into the wetlands."

Jindal also said the federal government must approve rock jetties to protect Barataria Bay and the other passes, which were left defenseless during the hurricane.

"It's taken them over a month to decide whether rocks in the water is dangerous," he said. "Somebody in Washington, D.C., needs to understand that rocks in the water is less dangerous than oil in the water."

Additional frustrations caused by the federal government's decision to halt the construction of sand berms one week before Hurricane Alex were only augmented by idle skimmers.

"We know there are redundant booms and skimmers sitting there because of the red tape," Jindal said.

He also announced a new initiative intended to make the process of deploying skimmers more effective by holding the Coast Guard more accountable. National Guard teams will assist the Coast Guard deploy skimmers in Terrebonne, Jefferson, Lafourche, St. Bernard, Plaquemines and St. Tammany Parishes, he said.

Nungesser said new skimmers will be tested on the water next week.

"We will ask BP to approve 300 new skimmers to be attached to fishing vessels," he said.

At the news conference, Jindal also called on President Barack Obama to "get in this war to win it," because the reality is that even if the leak is capped, oil will be hitting Louisiana's coastline for "months, not days and weeks."

"Our message to the federal government is lead or get out of they way," he said.

While Jindal focused on the long-term, Nungesser worried about how current weather patterns will affect the cleanup efforts.

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-39728-Tech-Buzz-Examiner~y2010m7d2-Watch-out--Blind-drivers-may-be-coming-soon

Lassen/APJoseph Casias, 30, who uses medical marijuana to treat symptoms of an inoperable brain tumor and cancer claims in a lawsuit that he was wrongfully fired from a Walmart store in Battle Creek, MI.

Joseph Casias might just feel like a dope for doping -- even though it was legal.

The Michigan father of two sued Walmart this week for firing him after he tested positive for marijuana -- which he was using to alleviate pain from a brain tumor and sinus cancer.

Casias, 30, was canned late last year after five years on the job in Battle Creek.

According to the complaint, Casias tested positive for marijuana in a drug test administered after he injured his knee at work, under a Walmart policy that requires employees injured on the job to take the test.

Casias, who won an associate of the year award at the store in 2008, has been using marijuana on his oncologist's advice after Michigan voters passed a law approving the drug's medical use in 2008.

“Joseph is an example of a patient for whom marijuana has had a life-changing positive effect,” the complaint states.

A Walmart spokesman said he sympathized with Casias, but defended the dismissal.

"Like other companies, we have to consider the overall safety of our customers and our associates, including Mr. Casias, when making a difficult decision like this,” said Greg Rossiter.

The American Civil Liberties Union also has filed a lawsuit against the nation’s largest retailer.

"No patient should be forced to choose between adequate pain relief and gainful employment," Scott Michelman, a staff attorney with the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project told CNN. “And no employer should be allowed to intrude upon private medical choices made by employees in consultation with their doctors.”

Michigan is an at-will employment state, which means employers can fire a worker for any reason unless it falls under a federally protected category such as race, gender and religion. The ACLU is arguing legal medical marijuana users also should be included.

According to the complaint, Casias wants to be rehired and is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/07/02/2010-07-02_walmart_fires_employee_for_using_medical_marijuana_in_michigan_worker_and_aclu_s.html#ixzz0scNuYyGx

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/02/july-fourth-weekend-world_n_634484.html

The hidden hand of Joe Biden Glenn Thrush July 2, 2010 04:27 AM EDT     Having Vice President Joe Biden (left) around is critical for President Barack Obama, a relative novice on foreign policy.

When President Barack Obama announced in the Rose Garden last week that he had sacked Gen. Stanley McChrystal, he also made a point of telling his fractious Afghanistan team that he welcomed “debate” but would not abide “division.”

The poster child for that all-for-one approach was standing directly on the president’s right: Vice President Joe Biden.

On Afghanistan, Obama’s most problematic foreign policy issue, Biden has earned the president’s respect and confidence by being both private skeptic and public cheerleader for administration policy. With a combination of subtlety and discretion that belie his reputation as a glad-handing chatterbox, Biden has parlayed the tricky dual role into a steady — if somewhat improbable — path to power in the Obama White House.

“He’s a total team player,” says White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, the member of Obama’s inner circle who has most forcefully pushed the idea of expanding Biden’s role as a foreign affairs troubleshooter.

“His job is to help the president to weigh these competing equities. There’s not good and bad choices here; it’s all these complexities, and he helps him think through all these equities,” Emanuel said.

The sudden firing of McChrystal — whose staff, according to Rolling Stone, nicknamed Biden “Joe Bite Me” — marked another milestone in the role Biden has embraced as what he calls “the skunk at the family picnic.”

Biden joined other top advisers in the Oval Office on the morning of McChrystal’s forced retirement for the final debate over McChrystal’s fate. He also was one of the first to suggest Gen. David Petraeus as McChrystal’s replacement, despite occasional clashes with the general over Afghanistan and Iraq war policy, according to a senior administration official.

Later that day, Biden pulled Petraeus aside after a meeting Obama convened in the White House Situation Room to say that he was “100 percent” behind the new Afghanistan commander and the counterinsurgency approach he initially questioned last fall.

Biden then suggested that the two have dinner. Could Petraeus come to Wilmington that weekend? No, the general said. But when he heard Biden planned to travel to Pensacola for an inspection tour of the Gulf oil spill, he invited the vice president to Tampa, which, until this week, was his home base as head of the U.S. Central Command.

Tuesday night, hours after his confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, Petraeus served Biden and his aide Tony Blinken sea bass, cucumber soup, Florida salad and banana flambé during a genteel, mostly social dinner that concluded with a tour of the general’s library.

No heavy discussion, a person familiar with the meeting told POLITICO — just a general conversation about the sacrifices being made by the troops and their families.

Biden’s theme: We’re all on the same page.

But the gestures masked a more complex reality. Last fall, as Petraeus and McChrystal were pushing for an increase of as many as 80,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Biden proposed an alternative strategy that focused on hunting Al Qaeda along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with far fewer troops. And while supporting Obama’s eventual decision to deploy more troops, Biden apparently remains deeply skeptical that President Hamid Karzai can ever run a functional state.

Obama, who has mandated the start of troop withdrawal in July 2011, has quietly encouraged his vice president to challenge existing assumptions about the war, even if it means rattling the military and the administration’s own officials.

“That’s what the president wants, and if he didn’t want [Biden] to do it, he’d shut it off,” Emanuel said.

Having Biden around is critical for Obama, a relative novice on foreign policy who was in high school when Biden was clambering up the seniority ladder on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Biden’s the voice of experience in the White House on this stuff,” said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, who once co-authored a plan with Biden to divide Iraq into three ethnically based federal districts.

“Biden’s got far more experience than all of them over there in the White House put together — and experience is more important than intellect on foreign policy. For all his Biden-isms — and they are inevitable with Joe — he knows this business, and people can’t dismiss him very easily.”

Petraeus, whose reputation rests on the success of the Iraq surge, “didn’t like” the Biden-Gelb plan when it was proposed a few years ago, according to Gelb. But reports of a Petraeus-Biden clash are overplayed, he added, and the vice president is willing to give the general time to make his Afghanistan plan work before passing judgment.

Other rifts within the administration’s Afghanistan team are more pronounced, most notably the split between Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and State Department envoy Richard Holbrooke — the intended recipients of Obama’s get-along-or-else message in the Rose Garden.

In the past, Emanuel — whose office sits near Biden’s in the West Wing — has asked Biden to go on quiet peacekeeping missions to defuse such conflicts. Last year, for example, Biden went to Baghdad to help mediate a simmering dispute between the top Iraq commander, Gen. Ray Odierno, and Ambassador Christopher Hill, according to administration officials.

That, in turn, has led to an ever-expanding role on Iraq. With the help of Blinken, a former aide from his days as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Biden runs the administration’s monthly meeting on Iraq. He frequently confers with a variety of experts on the conflict, including former Ambassador Ryan Crocker and former Bush aide Meghan O’Sullivan, and sits down for breakfast with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, although their schedules often get in the way.

Administration officials say Biden’s influence rivals Clinton’s on foreign policy issues in part because he’s learned to play by Obama’s rules: Be loyal and discreet.

“He’s not off the leash,” says an official who has worked closely with Biden.

But, alas, this is still Joe Biden, who regards the imperative of self-expression as second only to breathing and who can still annoy Obama with his off-script public ramblings and tendency to bloviate at big White House meetings.

Obama’s aides had to scramble recently when Jonathan Alter, in a new book on Obama’s first year in office, cited Biden as saying that a significant number of troops would begin leaving Afghanistan when the July 2011 target date arrives.

“Bet on it,” Biden said.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs questioned the context of the statement, Defense Secretary Robert Gates doubted its veracity, and Obama was forced to tell reporters he had no intention of “turning out the lights” in the region when the date arrived.

But more often than not, the White House has been able to leverage Biden’s skepticism to its advantage, especially when it comes to pushing back against the Pentagon’s efforts to pressure the president into accepting a more open-ended military commitment.

Last fall, when word leaked that McChrystal would request as many as 80,000 new troops for a stepped-up counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan, someone in the administration responded with a strategic counterleak: Biden was pushing for a scaled-down surge, accompanied by an accelerated effort to combat Al Qaeda with drones and troops along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

That leak publicly established Biden’s role as what a senior administration official calls “the in-house skeptic.”

Several officials told POLITICO the leak didn’t come from Biden’s office but from someone in the White House who wanted to make it clear that the McChrystal plan — backed by his boss Petraeus — was too radical. “It was a train headed 80 miles an hour, and it needed to be slowed down,” one official said.

Obama eventually opted for a middle path in a speech last December at West Point, when he announced a surge of about 40,000 troops, renewed counterinsurgency efforts against the Taliban and a new timetable for withdrawal.

The decision was portrayed as a defeat for Biden. But if Petraeus is unable to show significantly more progress than McChrystal did, many observers believe that Obama’s only choice will be to adopt some form of Biden’s scaled-down strategy.

In other words, “Joe Bite Me” may bite back.

“He’s now a major player,” says Steven Clemons, a foreign policy expert at the nonpartisan New America Foundation. “The proof of his influence is the level of disdain he generated in the McChrystal camp.”

RNC's Steele backtracks after Afghan war remarks

The many mishaps of Michael Steele

Before the current flareup over the war in Afghanistan, Chairman Michael S. Steele has often found himself in the spotlight -- and not in a good way. 

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 2, 2010; 5:58 PM

• RNC's Steele backtracks after Afghan war remarks
• The many mishaps of Michael Steele

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/02/cnns-disappearing-act-the_n_632732.html

In a new hard time, FDR's aura endures

The Siena Research Institute's 2010 Presidential Expert Poll ranked FDR number one. His cousin and fellow New Yorker, Theodore Roosevelt, came in second, ahead of Abraham Lincoln for the first time.

President Barack Obama came in 15th, within the range of where the country's sitting chief executives show up in the poll.

"The respondents have been very cautious so new presidents are between 15th and 20th. They don't want to anoint someone who's been in office less than a year," said Tom Kelly, Siena College emeritus professor of history and American studies, and co-director of the study.

Rounding out the top five are Lincoln in third, George Washington in fourth and Thomas Jefferson in fifth. The same five presidents have held the top positions with FDR always in first and Washington always in fourth. The others have moved up and down.

While the 238 presidential experts have remained consistent in each of the five polls held in 1982, 1990, 1994, 2002 and 2010, the rankings can reflect what's happening today.

TR's move past Lincoln itself may show what concerns people today.

"Teddy was a trust buster, the opponent of the malefactors of great wealth. There's a resonance" with current-day issues, Kelly said.

John F. Kennedy moved up to 11th, Kelly said, most likely helped by the death of his youngest brother, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Ranked last at 43rd is Andrew Johnson. Filling out the rest of the bottom five are James Buchanan, 42nd; Warren Harding, 41; Franklin Pierce, 40th; and George W. Bush, 39th.

Martin Van Buren, the Capital Region's hometown president from Kinderhook, ranks 23rd.

Richard M. Nixon has the lowest ranking for integrity at 43rd. Harding was 42nd and Bill Clinton was 41st.

The experts ranked the presidents in 20 categories.

The luckiest president was Washington, while Herbert Hoover had no luck at all. Hoover also ranked last for handling the economy.

The rankings for every president can be seen at the SRI website at http://www.siena.edu/sri/research.

Top 5 presidents?

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt

2. Theodore Roosevelt

3. Abraham Lincoln

4. George Washington

5. Thomas Jefferson

Wyatt Buchanan

Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Friday, July 2, 2010

(07-02) 04:00 PDT Sacramento - --

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered the state controller to cut the pay for most state workers to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour due to the lack of a budget being in place by the start of the fiscal year, which began Thursday.

The governor was expected to make that order, which affects about 200,000 state workers, though the timing was uncertain. 

State workers who experience pay cuts would be reimbursed once a state budget is in place. Most state employees are paid monthly at the end of the month, so if a budget is in place before the end of July, they would not receive a reduced paycheck.

Administration officials maintain they are required by law to reduce worker pay in the absence of a budget. 

In a letter to Controller John Chiang, Debbie Endsley, the director of the Department of Personnel Administration wrote, "Today is July 1, 2010, and there is no state budget. Regrettably, we must take the steps ... to adjust wages and salaries during this budget impasse." 

The administration made a similar order in 2008, but Schwarzenegger waited until the end of July to do so. Chiang defied that order and was sued by Schwarzenegger, but the budget impasse was resolved before a judge made a ruling in favor of the governor.

Chiang appealed the judge's decision and oral arguments were heard last week. A subsequent decision could still be appealed to the state Supreme Court. The administration has argued that it is bound by law to slash pay to the federal minimum wage without a spending plan in place, while Chiang has countered that doing so is actually a violation of the law. 

In response to the administration's actions Thursday, Chiang released a statement saying he would not comply with the request until the courts make a final ruling and calling Schwarzenegger's order "political tricks." 

"Because of the limits of the state's payroll system, there is no way that his order can be accomplished without violating the state Constitution and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act," Chiang said in a statement. "In short, his demands will do nothing to solve the budget deficit, but will hurt taxpayers by exposing the state to billions of dollars in penalties for those violations." 

Six public employee unions that represent about 37,000 workers would be excluded because they have agreed to contract concessions that gave them an exemption from such an order. However, those contracts have yet to be approved by the union membership or the Legislature. 

In her letter, Endsley wrote, "We anticipate passage of a continuous appropriation (from the Legislature) for these bargaining units before the end of the month." 

Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, said he was "deeply disappointed" by Schwarzenegger's order. 

"This is not a realistic proposal to save the state cash any more than his budget plan, which kills 430,000 jobs, is a realistic proposal to close our deficit," he said in a released statement. "Using working families as leverage is not the kind of leadership we need to get through this budget process." 

The state's largest public employee union, SEIU Local 1000, along with the union representing prison guards, have yet to reach agreement on contracts. An SEIU spokesman could not be reached for comment.

http://www.koco.com/news/24062424/detail.html

http://www.wpxi.com/news/24100193/detail.html

Michael Vick might have broken his NFL rules, if not the law

Published: Thursday, July 01, 2010, 11:08 AM   

Updated: Thursday, July 01, 2010, 2:50 PM

John DeShazier

The Times-Picayune

No law enforcement official is alleging that Michael Vick committed a crime in Virginia Beach, Va., as he celebrated his birthday Friday night. 

The possible contradiction in his timeline isn't evidence that he broke any laws; his lawyer said he left 10 to 20 minutes before a shooting occurred outside the nightclub where his celebration was held, while a spokesman for the nightclub said a videotape showed Vick actually departed about three minutes prior to the shooting.

But you can bet NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell isn't pleased that, perhaps, Vick was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you can bet that Goodell will have something to say - again - to the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback about the company he keeps and the fact that, of all people, Vick has to appear to be beyond reproach.

Now, maybe that doesn't sound like it's totally fair to Vick. He served his time for his role in a dogfighting operation, and lost tens of millions of dollars - and likely at least as many fans - while he sat behind bars and surveyed his actions. He has paid his debt, and he paid dearly and significantly.

But his re-admission to the NFL came with some caveats, and he knew exactly what those stipulations were. And, obviously, one of them was that he wouldn't be given much benefit of the doubt, that he'd better not even look like he's been anywhere or in any situation that possibly would cause embarrassment for the league.

Being at a party, after which a man is shot, isn't exactly a situation the league will take pride in.

It's even worse when the guy who was alleged to have been shot was Quanis Phillips, a co-defendant in Vick's dogfighting case and, assuredly, a person Goodell warned Vick to not allow to be caught in the same area code as Vick.

True, Vick reportedly wasn't involved in any altercations inside or outside the club. He's not a suspect in the shooting. Phillips wasn't an invited guest and whether Vick left three minutes or 20 minutes before the shooting, the bottom line is that he left before the shooting.

And still, it's hard not to figure that Goodell just might decide that Vick again has brought unwanted and unflattering attention to the NFL shield, and that Vick still doesn't quite understand how important it is for Vick to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Does that mean Vick has to avoid being a "regular" person and that he is shackled by the fact that he can't enjoy simple, lawful pleasures like the rest of us?

That's exactly what it means if he wants to play in the NFL, especially if there's a possibility that something bad could break out. That's the position he put himself in as a convicted felon, and it's the rule he's going to have to abide by - the one he undoubtedly agreed to abide by - until he leaves the NFL.

Just because he didn't commit a crime to Virginia Beach law enforcement officials doesn't mean he didn't slip up in the eyes of Goodell. And right now, the latter probably should be more feared by Vick than the former.

Sharron Angle's Tea Party Agenda Gets A Drastic Makover

First Posted: 07- 1-10 05:58 PM   |   Updated: 07- 1-10 06:06 PM

Elyse Siegel

In early June, Senate candidate Sharron Angle spoke emphatically on her website about abolishing the Department of Education, having Social Security "transitioned out" to the private sector, and repealing legislation that prohibited offshore drilling.

But today, if you visit the Nevada Republican's website, you'd have no indication that any of these positions were planks of her agenda.

After three weeks of rewrites, the Angle campaign has released (with little publicity or fanfare) a new and improved campaign website. It was done with obvious care, and tailor-made to pitch the Tea Party favorite as a mellow-minded conservative alternative to her Democratic opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

A comparison of the content from both websites shows dramatic, fundamental shifts in her policy platform. For instance, the candidate has gone from calling for the "repeal" of "regulations that prohibit off shore drilling" to a position that is, simply put, the exact opposite.

"America's policy should be to enforce the rules and regulations currently on the books with respect to off shore drilling," her new site reads. "The recent oil blowout in the Gulf occurred because BP took a high risk approach in its drilling program while cutting corners, as opposed to the low-risk approach other companies also drilling in the Gulf have taken without incident."

Likewise, on the old website, the Senate candidate said she thought "the Federal Department of Education should be eliminated" because it "is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level."

Currently, however, all Angle lists under her Education section is that "decisions are best made at the state and local level by parents and teachers..."

That scrubbing is mild, however, when compared to Angle's makeover of her policy prescriptions for border security and immigration. In her old policy platform, Angle touted the endorsement she received from the controversial anti-immigration group, The Minuteman PAC. That endorsement has disappeared from the new site.

Also gone is Angle's stance calling for "an intensive physical presence on borders, including military assistance to help the Border Patrol do its job effectively," and her claim that "The intentions of these illegal aliens are unknown and there are no means to track their activities."

Today, the "Border Security/Illegal Immigration" section of her issue page is the slimmest of all. Here is that section, in its entirety: "The United States must secure its borders immediately." Nevada's large Hispanic population is undoubtedly weighing on the author's mind.

Asked about the website alterations, the National Republican Senatorial Committee -- which spearheaded the re-launch -- said that it was a normal upgrade for any candidate transitioning into a general election.

"Many campaigns revamp and re-launch enhanced websites over the course of an election season," said NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh. "Sharron Angle's positions have not changed though and she remains committed to reversing the economically disastrous policies of Harry Reid while offering Nevada the fiscally responsible leadership they deserve."

But even if the revisions offered to Angle's record don't represent position changes (though with respect to offshore drilling, a clear change was made), they do reflect a decidedly tone-downed candidate. No longer does her bio list the endorsement from the "birther" organization, "Declaration Alliance PAC." Gone, likewise, is her call for "free market alternatives" to Social Security as that system is "transitioned out." In its place is a short section that calls for the country to "keep the promise" of Social Security and redeem the IOUs.

There are other obvious changes that, under normal circumstances, would seem like drastic attempts to dilute a legislative platform. Angle no longer refers to a cap and trade proposal as "unscientific hysteria over the man-caused global warming hoax" that stepped "over the constitutional boundaries of the federal government and is merely another way to tax the people."

As for her reference to the United Nations as an institution "captured by the far left and has become ineffective and costly," that's gone too.

Her new website does not, like the old one, call for abolishing the "67,000-pages of IRS code," or for making the "death tax cuts permanent." Nor does it mention her proposal to require that a "supermajority two-thirds requirement" be instituted for passing tax increases.

The totality of the changes is enormous and a real reflection of the extent to which Angle was a decidedly non-mainstream candidate who has been thrust into a high profile race. It's also no small illustration of how willing the candidate has been to compromise her Tea Party principles for the purposes of the general election.

Oil Spill Media Access: Reporters Still Given The Runaround Even As Public Health Concerns Mount

First Posted: 07- 1-10 12:28 PM   |   Updated: 07- 1-10 02:53 PM

The latest chapter in the media's ongoing struggle to cover the Gulf Oil Spill comes courtesy of PBS Newshour's Bridget Desimone, who has been working with her colleague, Betty Ann Bowser, in "reporting the health impact of the oil spill in Plaquemines Parish." Desimone reports that on the ground, officials are generally doing a better job answering inquiries and granting access to the clean-up efforts.

But Desimone and Bowser have encountered one "roadblock" that they've struggled to overcome: access to a "federal mobile medical unit" in Venice, Louisiana: "The glorified double-wide trailer sits on a spit of newly graveled land known to some as the "BP compound." Ringed with barbed wire-topped chain link fencing, it's tightly restricted by police and private security guards."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services set up the facility on May 31. According to a press release, the medical unit is staffed by "a medical team from the HHS National Disaster Medical System -- a doctor, two nurses, two emergency medical technician paramedics (EMT-P) and a pharmacist."

For over two weeks, my NewsHour colleagues and I reached out to media contacts at HHS, the U.S. Coast Guard and everyone listed as a possible media contact for BP, in an attempt to visit the unit and get a general sense of how many people were being treated there , who they were and what illnesses they had. We got nowhere. It was either "access denied," or no response at all. It was something that none of us had ever encountered while covering a disaster. We're usually at some point provided access to the health services being offered by the federal government.

From there, Desimone describes the runaround she and Bowser were treated to, in terms with which you are no doubt familiar with by now. When Desimone finally got to speak with Ron Burger, the "Medical Unit Operations Chief for HHS's National Disaster Medical System," she was told that the facility had been treating responders and could not or would not confirm or deny that any area residents had been treated there or turned away.

Concerns over public health in the Gulf region run high. Experts in the field have called for a "coordinated approach to monitoring and researching affected populations." And residents of the region continue to worry about the near-term effects of the clean-up effort and the long-term health impact the oil spill will have on the seafood. They have good reason to be concerned:

One of the first things BP did after oil started gushing into the Gulf was to spray more than 1.1 million gallons of a dispersant with the optimistic name "Corexit" onto the oil. Then BP hired Louisiana fishermen and others to help with cleanup and containment operations. About two weeks later, over seventy workers fell sick, complaining of irritated throats, coughing, shortness of breath and nausea. Seven workers were hospitalized on May 26. Workers were engaged in a variety of different tasks in different places when they got sick: breaking up oil sheen, doing offshore work, burning oil and deploying boom. BP officials speculated that their illnesses were due to food poisoning or other, unrelated reasons, but others pointed out how unlikely these other causes were, since the sick workers were assigned to different locations.

Burger also told Desimone that the facility was being run under the auspices of the "national contingency plan." I'll remind you for the eleventy billionth time that National Incident Commander Thad Allen specifically directed officials on the ground to grant access to the media, in what appears to be the most widely unheard or ignored set of orders in the world.