Jennifer Rexford, who worked cleaning the mess left by the BP oil spill, has documented the impact the spill has had on her body by filming her deterioration and her attempts to seek medical help.

If true this could not be worse news. CNN is reporting that another oil rig has exploded off the coast of Louisiana. Details are still sketchy but here’s what they have so far:

On day two of Greta Van Susteren‘s Great Alaska Adventure, she and Sarah Palin visited Valdez and ANWR during the day and talked about it live On The Record.

While it wasn’t exactly “drill baby drill,” Palin revealed what she believes would truly be a stimulus program for America.

The news from the Gulf today is that the “Static Kill” operation has been successful and that the well is plugged and the oil dissipating although work is far from done. Shepard Smith, however, is skeptical and made that abundantly clear on today’s Studio B. With the director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner as his guest, Smith did everything but flat out accuse BP and the administration of lying about the clean up progress. Unsurprisingly, Browner was none too thrilled about the implication.

Sandra Bullock is backpedaling to condemn a PSA she made as part of the Restore the Gulf campaign. The PSA, called “Be the One,” features Bullock and other celebrities asking viewers to sign a petition to Congress demanding a fully funded restoration plan for the Gulf. Turns out, though, that the campaign is sponsored by an organization called America’s Wetland Foundation, which, despite the nice sounding name, is actually a greenwashing front group for big oil companies likes Shell, American Petroleum and, you guessed it, BP.

According to numerous wire reports, for the first time in 87 days, there is currently no oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the broken BP controlled oil well Deepwater Horizon. While the news is certainly encouraging, officials continue to be very cautious, and are planning to continue with a “stress test” of the oil cap for the next 48 hours. If all goes well after the additional precautionary measure, this could very well be the end of the oil leaking into the gulf.

While there’s no question that President Obama inherited a lot of problems when he took oath, there is question as to who’s responsible for problems like the financial crisis, a weak economy, and lax regulatory policies that may have lead to the (oil disaster.) “Blame Bush!” is an oft-cried meme, both by Democrats and the Republicans decrying the tactic. But as Jon Stewart points out, blaming a previous administration isn’t new. Himm…I wonder if the GOP ever blamed the Clinton administration, because that could certainly make them look sort of silly.

Former President Bill Clinton was one of the speakers today at the Global Forum being hosted by Fortune, CNN, and Time in South Africa. During his time there, he discussed such hotbed issues as our budget (which he called “broken”), as well as the oil disaster in the Gulf. While discussing the spill, Clinton both defended the current president’s handling of the issue as well as contradicting the Obama administration’s clean up plans.

When I read on CNN.com that they had an article in which analysts describe how President Obama’s speech was written at a 10th-grade reading level and, therefore, went “over the heads” of most Americans, I was all ready to be outraged. How dare CNN besmirch the education level of my beloved US of A. However, when I read the article, I found it surprisingly interesting. After that, I found it depressing. Very, very depressing.

After Pres. Barack Obama‘s much talked about, and significantly delayed, meeting with BP execs, both he and Chairman Carl Henric Svanberg addressed the media.

CEO Tony Hayward was there too – but he didn’t say anything this time.

President Obama delivered his first Oval Office speech last night, and it went over like an oil-infused pelican. Everyone from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, to our own Frances Martel, laid into the speech with the gusto of a chin-impaling bull. Admittedly, the speech didn’t solve all of our problems (and if there’s anyone who could have solved all of our problems with a speech, it’s Barack Obama), but the specific criticisms I’ve read seem childish, and ignore important subtexts.

The tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico forced President Obama to dive into what were previously uncharted waters for him last night: the Oval Office address. Alone, with no crowd to save or jeer him, nothing but the prestige of his title as a safety net, it was his responsibility to remind Americans that, no matter how out of control any situation may seem, he was fully in charge. If you’re not feeling particularly reassured this morning after, you’re not the only one.

As coverage of the current oil spill crisis continues to dominate the media, the Democratic National Committee is gearing up to refocus national attention back on health care. Yesterday, the DNC released a new ad entitled “We Can’t Afford To Go Back,” which is set to air on national cable television next week.

We here at Mediaite usually try to refrain from just throwing up videos we like without comment, but sometimes funny is just funny and the following video by some of the geniuses at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre is absolutely hilarious. The video depicts a meeting at the British Petroleum offices that goes a bit awry when a cup of coffee is spilled on the desk. The team quickly tries to figure out what to do and…well, just watch it.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll recently released shows that President Obama has lower approval ratings for his handling of the Gulf oil spill than President Bush had for his actions after Hurricane Katrina. It’s a bad place to be in the summer of a midterm election, as Bill O’Reilly noted last night, but while the President might still hope to bring back some swing voters, there is one population he is not going to convince to vote for him again: the pelicans.

Say what you will about Whoopi Goldberg, but sometimes she just hits the nail on the head. This morning, on The View, the ladies were discussing the Gulf Oil Spill and Whoopi silenced the room when she broke into a fiery rant about BP’s incompetence. It was nothing we haven’t heard before, however, something about her passion and the way she pointed out one of the most disturbing parts of the whole situation (why wasn’t BP prepared for this?) that made tirade, at the very least, great television.

It was only a little more than a year ago that Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor, was pegged as the savior of the GOP. He was asked to give to Republican response to the President’s speech on the economy as many believed that he was the Republican’s answer to Pres. Obama. After his speech aired, he was instead seen by many as the politician’s answer to Kenneth from 30 Rock. Soon after, the derided Jindal seemed to disappear from the national spotlight. However, an Associated Press article today wonders whether the governor’s increased media exposure following the oil spill and his dogged leadership throughout will turn his reputation around.

BP CEO Tony Hayward has said so many objectionable things during the more than 40 days since the Deepwater Horizon exploded at sea that one of the things the media seemed to have missed was the number of times he insisted that the disaster was “not our accident.” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann put together a damning collection of clips last night of Hayward removing blame from BP, claiming no oil had reached the shores, and congratulating his team on their successes.

As soon as an oil company was caught possibly behaving inappropriately close to his district, it was a matter of time before Florida Congressman Alan Grayson came out and denounced the Devil Dick Cheney for his Halliburton sins. But on talk radio’s Stephanie Miller show today, he threw us a curveball: it’s not Cheney he wants to see in jail for the BP oil leak, it’s… RNC Chairman Michael Steele?

It took them a while, but the media is now giving wall to wall coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf and the desperate attempts to plug it up. What kind of coverage will we be in for if the oil makes its way up the East Coast to New York, the home of all things “lamestream,” as well as…shudder…the Hamptons. I joke but this is a very real possibility if a study released today by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is correct.

This morning, Fox & Friends gave an interesting report on the amount of Obama supporters on the left who have been critical of the president for not showing enough emotion in the handling of the Gulf Oil Spill. They listed criticism from key Obamaites like Maureen Dowd and Spike Lee and mentioned Jon Stewart’s great take down from Tuesday night. Then, finally, after discussing all these great critiques from people on the left, it was time for the Fox & Friends gang to get their licks in. Gretchen Carlson stepped up to the plate, pointed to the bleachers, swung, and…accused Obama of wearing “fancy pants and a fancy shirt.” Uh huh.

America may have reached the peak of desperation for finding solutions to the open oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. After a Russian newspaper suggested the tried and true tactic of sticking nuclear weapons under oil leaks to stop the flow, the idea of sticking a plutonium bomb in the Gulf is popping up everywhere as the only hope to save what little remains of the Gulf as it is now. The plan is only slightly less insane than it sounds.

Exxon must be thanking their lucky stars that the internet wasn’t popular when the Valdez crashed back in 1989. While the fake BP public relations Twitter page continues to spew hilarious bile, the rest of the internet has joined them in making British Petroleum the web’s favorite online punching bag. The latest site to lace up their gloves is LogoMyWay, a logo design site which is holding a contest for users to create a new logo for the company. The submissions so far have been unsurprisingly harsh.

After rumors circulated earlier today that BP’s “Top Kill” method of plugging the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico failed, BP COO Doug Suttles hosted a press conference today to make it official that Top Kill did not succeed and that they were moving on to “the next option”: the “lower marine riser package,” which they had been planning “all along.”

Illegal immigration is bad and people who come into the country illegally are criminals. Alright, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can discuss whether or not it’s fair to compare human beings (criminals though they may be) to a toxic sludge that is killing thousands of plants and animals, ruining entire ecosystems, and destroying the livelihoods and altogether way of life of tons of people? That’s what Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) did yesterday when discussing his proposed amendment to build a 700-mile fence along the US border.