Transcripts For CNN The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer 20100618

i'm wolf blitzer. you're in the situation room. more oil from that gushing well being kept out of the gulf of mexico. here are the latest developments. coast guard admiral thad allen says 25,000 barrels of oil were collected in the last 24-hour period. that's about one-third more than the previous day. good news. the house judiciary committee says bp has paid less than 12% of damage claims by individuals and businesses. the panel says bp hasn't made a single payment for either bodily injury or diminished home property value. not such good news. the official in charge of the new $20 billion compensation fund today pledged to quickly create a system to process claims. ken feinberg who oversaw the 9/11 victims fund vows claims could be paid within 60 days of filing. our latest cnn research corporation poll, will the gulf of mexico ever completely recover? 51% say yes. 49% say no. the president already has a coast guard admiral overseeing the gulf crisis. now he's brought in the navy's secretary, the former mississippi governor ray mavis to lead the environmental and economic recovery effort along the coast. but mavis isn't giving up his day job and that's sparking serious criticism out there. let's go to our senior white house correspondent ed henry who is monitoring what's going on. what are they saying about the white house? the navy secretary, that's a full-time job overseeing the navy, marine corps, and now is also going to undertake this effort along the gulf coast? >> reporter: that's right. a full-time job obviously with two wars going on overseas. the white house now facing some criticism because ray mavis is going to keep his day job essentially. i just got off the phone with a spokeswoman at the defenders of wildlife who was saying, look. this is going to take years, maybe decades to clean up the gulf, clean up the environment. get the wildlife back. and they think this should be a full-time job. this criticism was sparked by the fact that yesterday i asked robert gibbs whether or not secretary mavis would be stepping down from his day job. take a listen. >> wouldn't this be a full-time job in the gulf recovery? >> i -- the president talked to the governor about this and they both agreed that he had the ability to do both. >> ray mavis was here. he met with the president at the white house here to go through all of this. they feel confident that he can balance all of this and today a white house spokesman bill burton traveling in ohio with the president was pressed by reporters about this. he insisted the president still thinks this is the right man for the job and he can balance his time. >> he may be the right man for the job. i know ray mavis. he is a very talented guy, a former governor of mississippi. when i heard the president in the oval office say this son of the gulf coast, son of the south was going to take charge i assumed the president would be looking for a new navy secretary because i assumed that would be a full-time job. he is though getting some support from some environmentalists. >> he is. >> reporter: that is the broader issue is the way the president cast this on tuesday night in the oval office. he was using all that war rhetoric, mobilizing the forces, really made it sound like this was going to be a full-time job in terms of gulf restoration. there are some defenders, though, of ray mavis as you noted. i just got off the phone with fred kropp president of the environmental defense fund and he said, look, he's been working with ray mavis for a long time because he is on an advisory council at the pentagon where ray mavis has an initiative to make the navy more energy efficient and fred was telling me you could not find a better environmentalist who knows the gulf region as well as he does. he was the mississippi governor. fred krupinsp said if anyone is going to do this whether part-time or full-time this is the man to do it. so they have defenders. this will raise more concerns about the president's focus on this issue and whether the white house or administration more prodly is really mobilizing all of the forces. >> i suspect eventually he has to pick one of these two jobs. i know what a secretary of the navy does. it's more than a full-time job overseeing some 800,000 or 900,000 military troops in the navy and the marine corps. he's going to have to make a major decision. so with ill the president. he is a high profile movie star but kevin kostner has spent years trying to get big oil companies to pay attention to a device he helped fund, a machine that separates oil from water. bp this week ordered almost three dozen of them. yesterday kostner testified before a senate committee. today he joined louisiana officials and bp executives on the front lichbts oil fight. let's go to golden meadow, louisiana. how did it go, ed? >> reporter: actually it was kind of interesting. the barge you see behind me has three of those machine ris, centrifuge machines sitting up on top, the white machines with the hard hats, that is a barge that was in the gulf and was brought in for this event that just wrapped up moments ago and will be heading back out into the gulf. it's interesting because kevin kostner was on capitol hill yesterday essentially criticizing heavily not only the red tape that he had to go through to get bp to pay attention to the machinery he's been pushing but also criticized heavily the oil industry in general for essentially kind of ignoring this idea for decades. so one day after doing that kevin kostner is down here in louisiana standing next to one of the bp executives thanking him for finally listening to this idea. as you mentioned, 32 of his centrifuge devices have been purchased by bp and will be deployed into the gulf. kevin kostner says as well as bp executives that it will make a good, a great difference in trying to minimize the impact of this oil spill. >> at its core my dream, this machine was designed for that. to fight for you. it was designed to give us a fighting chance to fight back the oil before it got us by the throat. when you're in a fight, anybody knows you go to confront it right where it is. you don't wait for it to come to your door. you don't allow it to reach your family, your community, that's what this machine was intended for. >> reporter: kostner also goes on to say that better late than never. two months into this oil spill disaster and the cleanup efforts. essentially the way those machines work, wolf, is inside that water brings in the water and the oil and spins it so fast they say it separates the oil and the water. the oil is collected inside these tanker barges and this one i was told could capture up to 75,000 barrels of oil so they have several of those that will be deployed out into the gulf as well. but obviously for a company like bp that has taken a brutal beating over the last couple of months from a public relations standpoint the opportunity to stand next to a movie star was too good to pass up. >> he really knows the subject, too. he testified here in washington this week. he obviously has good expertise. let's hope it really works. ed, thanks very much. he apologized to bp accusing the obama administration of a shakedown. the republican congressman joe barton has taken it all back. why are fellow republicans still furious? and is the obama administration planning to file suit over arizona's controversial immigration law? hillary clinton the secretary of state dropping a bombshell and the arizona governor is furious. plus, four north korean players show up for practice after missing a world cup soccer match. were they really missing? stay with us here in the situation room. jack cafferty is here with the cafferty file. >> wolf, it turns out recovery is in the eye of the beholder. president obama and vice president biden have kicked off a massive pr campaign celebrating what they're calling recovery summer. they say the $860 billion economic stimulus bill is working. the white house says 2.5 million jobs have been created and should reach 3 million by the end of the year. they are highlighting new jobs at thousands of infrastructure projects across the country but the celebration may be premature. just yesterday the labor department reported new claims for jobless benefits jumped by 12,000 last week, much sharper increase than expected and it shows that the pace of layoffs has not slowed appreciably. plus we still have a national unemployment rate hovering just below 10%. an editorial in the "washington times" called obama's endless summer of spending suggests the administration's make work jobs program has failed and that those infrastructure jobs which are being funded by the taxpayers will disappear when the stimulus money runs out, soon. the fact is the current recovery has been one of the worst for job creation ever. meanwhile, the picture in many of the 50 states is terrible and getting worse. state and local governments are cutting wherever they can in order to meet their budgets, reducing or eliminating public services, under funding state pension plans, and cutting 230,000 state and local government jobs in just the last couple of years. former fed chairman alan greenspan is out with a dire warning that the united states may soon reach its borrowing limit if we don't make some drastic changes and reduce our $13 trillion national debt. but president obama wants billions more for stimulus spending. somewhere there appears to be a rather serious disconnect. here is the question. does it feel like a recovery summer to you? go to cnn.com/cafferty file. post a comment on my blog. >> to millions of americans the answer is certainly no. >> yeah. >> we'll hear what they have to say to you, jack. thanks very much. back to our top story, that massive oil spill in the gulf of mexico, the growing political fallout for president obama. let's discuss with our senior political analyst david gergen and gloria. let me read first what peggy noonan a former speechwriter in the reagan administration writes in "the wall street journal." the president is starting to look snake bit. he is starting to look unlucky like jimmy carter. it wasn't mr. carter's fault that the american diplomats were taken hostage in tehran but he handled it badly and suffered. mr. obama is starting to look unlucky and file this under mysteries of leadership that is dangerous for him because americans get nervous when they have a snake bit president. they want presidents on whom the sun shines. certainly shined most of the time on ronald reagan. what do you think of that analysis? >> well, there's much to it. i'm not sure i'd use the word snake bit. probably a lot of americans would substitute the word competent, decisive, forceful. the point is, somebody in the white house told me the other day president obama told them early on about 15% or 20% of our time we'll be spending on our agenda and the rest probably reacting to other things. we're in the reacting mode right now. and the problem is he went into reacting mode and didn't have a clear plan and most importantly has not seemed forceful, has not seemed as if he is on to knowp . we have this continuing stream. i think he did well with the bp $20 billion fund. the big, bold move, best he's made so far. in terms of cleaning it up we said this on a day-to-day basis, more and more stories coming out, that show people are stumbling all over each other in terms of the cleanup and he's not the leader in charge. >> people elected barack obama because they thought he was cool and they thought he was competent. what david is saying and i agree with is they haven't seen that competence. what they've seen and i think this is a bit of a problem for him is somebody who seems to be more academic, more professorial in his approach. we hear a lot, that steven chu for example is a nobel prize winning physicist who is directing this from the energy department. that's nice to hear except people want to hear that the leak is plugged. we also know that there is a commission on what's going to happen in the future in the gulf. people are thinking more about what happens now particularly with the moratorium on drilling. they want decisions made on that very quickly because people's lives and livelihoods are at stake. so, you know, this is somebody who is clearly a thinker, clearly very deliberate. but people want action and they want to see things getting done faster than they are. >> david, ed henry reported at the top of the hour on ray mavis the secretary of the navy taking a part-time job in addition to running the navy as sort of the gulf coast czar if you will, the recovery czar. when i heard it the other night the president announced davis would take this on and i assumed he would give up his job as secretary of the navy. can you really do two jobs like this at the same time? >> not well. ray mavis is a first rate individual. he's smart and effective. he has the capability of being an excellent navy secretary and the capability of doing an excellent job on restoration of the gulf planning. he does not -- no one has the capacity to do both of those well. a lot of emphasis is going on the environmental groups that are disturbed he'll only be doing it part-time. i have a lot of concern that he's secretary of the navy with 900,000 people under his command in effect. he's got marines now in afghanistan and iraq for whom he is responsible. i think most of us want a secretary of navy spending full-time making sure our armed forces are protected well. and have somebody else do the other job. >> i agree. it doesn't speak well of the commitment to the recovery of the gulf or to the navy. >> no. >> when yo try to divide these jobs in half. >> it is going to be very difficult. somebody reminded me when donald powell was chosen to take over katrina he quit his job at the federal deposit insurance corporation and that, you know, mavis is going to have some political problems here because governors like governor barbour down there already saying, look, we don't want the feds to decide the reconstruction plan. we as governors want to decide the reconstruction plan. he is going to have to be meeting with an awful lot of political leaders down there. you know how that hand holding goes. it takes an awful lot of time and energy and effort and as both you and david are saying i don't know how he can wear both hats. >> i suspect sooner rather than later david they're going to have to make a decision which job does he keep and which one goes somewhere else? >> that's exactly right, wolf. they need to do by the way to act with urgency on that and act with more urgency on the moratorium and that commission is going to meet for the first time next week. it still does not have an executive director. it's not clear that, you know, they ought to have, perhaps a different team going out and looking and inspecting the rigs out there and get people back to work so this doesn't become -- >> right. >> a wider economic disaster. >> all right. good points, guys. thanks very much. could the drilling moratorium in the gulf of mexico end up meaning some oil workers will lose their jobs forever? new information coming in. and vicious tornadoes in minnesota leave at least three people dead. we'll have the latest on the aftermath. a second... come on up here, where your brothers sit. wow! chevy traverse. a consumers digest best buy, with a 100,000 mile, powertrain warranty. it seats eight comfortably - not that it always has to. now, get 0% apr for 60 months on a 2010 traverse with an average finance savings of around fifty four hundred dollars. see your local chevy dealer. introducing total plus omega-3 honey almond flax cereal. all the nutrition of total, plus 10% daily value omega-3 ala, and a delicious honey almond crunch. new total plus omega-3. and a delicious honey almond crunch. ♪ (announcer) right now, all over the country, discover card customers are getting five percent cashback bonus at restaurants. it pays to get more, it pays to discover. this is why we do this! freedom! the open road! no doubt! and progressive has great coverage and policies starting at just $95 a year. i dig that! most bikers do -- that's why progressive is number one! whoo! whoo! let's renew up. yeah, that sounds good, man. do i have any bugs in my teeth? no, you're good. number one in motorcycle insurance. now, that's progressive. basic.? preferred. okay. at meineke i have options, and 50% off brake pads and shoes. my money. my choice. my meineke. lisa sylvester is monitoring some of the other top stories in the situation room right now. what's going on? at least three people are dead and dozens injured in minnesota after a cruel dose of severe weather. the national weather service reported 36 tornado sightings yesterday which if confirmed would exceed the state record of 27 in one day. governor pawlenty is activating the national guard and touring the damage today. the polish president killed in a plane crash is being remembered by his twin brother who is now a leading candidate in the election to replace his late brother. he interrupted his last day of campaigning to visit the grave site. today is the birthday of the brothers. poland's elections are sunday. the late president and first lady were part of a high level delegation killed in april on a trip to russia. members of north korea's world cup soccer team thought to be missing showed up for practice today. the four players missed the tuesday match against brazil. tournament officials deny they were ever missing saying they were left off the game's lineup because of a technical error. and the lyrics to the legendary beatles hit "a day in the life" have been auctioned off for $1.2 million. the final song on the classic "sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club" album was written by john lennon. take a listen. ♪ i read the news today oh, boy >> makes you want to sing along or dance. the double sided sheet of paper features lennon'sed its and corrections. "rolling stone" magazine lists the song as one of the greatest of all time. >> can we listen to a little more of that? maybe 20 more seconds, howie. let's listen to a little more. >> i like it. ♪ >> love that song. love the beatles. long live the beatles as we used to say. thanks very much. hillary clinton fanning the flames over arizona's controversial immigration law. what she said that got arizona's governor so angry. and what a gop congressman said that got so many fellow republicans angry. why joe barton is still facing serious fallout. and the oil disaster takes a growing toll on turtles. we'll show you what's being done to help them. ♪ ay, yay, yay, yay ♪ ay, yay, yay, yay ♪ ♪ ♪ baby, baby, baby, baby... uh-oh ♪ ♪ you're in "the situation room." they're battling the oil spill from the skies. cnn joined the national guard on important sand bag air lifts to the barrier islands. stand by. and they're all the buzz. why are some people saying buzz off to those famous world cup plastic horns? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." arizona's controversial immigration law requires police to check for legal residency when investigating a suspected crime. the obama administration has spoken out against that law but has it now served notice that it plans to do something concrete about it? our homeland security correspondent is all over this. a bit of a bombshell from the secretary of state hillary clinton. >> wolf, you're right. as if the debate over the arizona immigration law wasn't incendiary enough the secretary of state has now poured gasoline on the flames by revealing that the federal government plans to go to court to stop it. love it -- >> we as a nation support you and your law. >> or hate it -- the arizona law arouses passion. now add insult. the arizona governor is fuming that she found out through a news interview that the federal government is going to court to block the law. >> they are going to sue us without coming straight to the state of arizona and notifying me personally. it's outrageous and it's unacceptable. >> secretary of state hillary clinton spilled the beans on latin american television. >> president obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy and the justice department under his direction will be bringing a lawsuit against the act. >> reporter: a justice department spokesman will only say the department is continuing to review the law but at the state department there was no backtracking. >> so you're saying she did not misspeak? >> i'm saying her words stand for themselves. >> reporter: privately administration officials say a suit is planned. as one senior official put it bluntly, are we going to challenge the law? yes, we are. the arizona statute would require police investigating a crime to check immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion the individual is in the country illegally. supporters hope it will discourage illegal immigration but civil rights groups say it violates the constitution and even if the federal government ultimately brings suit, they will, too. whether or not the federal government jumps into the litigation, the law is unconstitutional and we look forward to stopping it in court. >> the challenges will likely be filed in federal court in phoenix just days before the law is slated to go into effect on july 28th. wolf? >> what grounds might the federal government use to challenge the law? >> according to officials not the civil rights things brought up by some of the civil rights groups. probably they're going to use the argument that it is the federal government's responsibility to police that border and enforce civil rights, excuse me, immigration laws, and the state is trying to usurp federal authority. >> sort of unusual though that the secretary of state would make the announcement. >> yes, very unusual. and i think there may be some unhappy campers at the department of justice. >> thanks very much for that. how do americans feel about arizona's law and illegal immigrants? in our last opinion poll, 57% said they favor it. 37% said they opposed it. for democrats it's the gaffe that keeps on giving. gop congressman joe barton has backed off his accusation that the obama administration engaged in a shakedown of bp by pressuring it to establish a huge compensation fund. some fellow republicans are still furious at barton. our senior congressional correspondent dana bash is digging into this part of the story for us. it's not ending by any means, is it, dana? >> reporter: certainly doesn't seem to be. gop house leaders forced barton to take back his apology to bp after yesterday on the house floor republicans and the rank and file were coming up and saying they were politically worried and just plain mad. one republican congressman who sources tell us was visibly livid on the house floor yesterday says he still is and is taking it public. >> as quickly as possible. >> reporter: joe barton may have recanted his apology to bp but some republican colleagues from the gulf coast say not good enough. alabama republican joe bonner released a statement saying i am today calling on joe to do the right thing for our conference and immediately step aside as ranking member of the energy and commerce committee. bonner says barton called him friday morning to offer his personal apologies but bonner says, quote, the damage of his comments are beyond repair. those comments, accusing the white house of forcing bp to fork over what he called a $20 billion slush fund and saying, sorry, to bp. >> i do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again in my words amounts to a shakedown. so i apologize. >> congressman jeff miller, another gulf coast republican, who was the first to call on barton to step aside from his committee post says nothing is changed and barton's comments show, quote, a complete lack of understanding of the magnitude of this crisis. mr. barton should step aside. as pressure mounts on barton from within his own ranks democrats are trying to take advantage of what they call a political gift, a new tv ad by the democratic national committee. >> so i apologize. >> republicans apologizing to bp? tell republicans, stop apologizing to big oil. >> reporter: and the man in charge of getting house democrats elected says they intend to use this issue against gop candidates. >> we're going district by district to talk about this issue. and holding republican members and their candidates accountable. >> reporter: and he says joe barton is not alone. republican michele bachmann on cnn's jk usa. >> we don't think it is a good idea for the federal government to see private industry as essentially a piggy bank for the federal government. >> her democratic opponent launched this new tv ad. >> if bachmann lets bp off the hook, guess who's paying? us. michele bachmann, standing up for bp, not us. >> as for joe barton the question is will he be forced to step aside from his senior post on the house energy and commerce committee? house gop leadership sources say in the short term not likely but, and this is interesting, wolf, his term in that post as the ranking republican on that committee is up next year. traditionally somebody can ask for a waiver to stay in that position. and republican sources at least one we talked to said it's going to be very tough for him to do that now. >> we invited both of them to join us today, joe barton and michele bachmann. unfortunately they couldn't but down the road i'm sure they will. thanks very much for that. imagine your taxpayer money going toward checks for dead people. members of the obama administration say it's been happening. we'll tell you what they're saying and what they're going to do to try to stop it. plus, new questions about a federal judge bp wants to oversee the lawsuits it's facing from the oil spill. and their small success store nic the midst of a natural disaster. we're on the scene with some oil-soaked turtles getting a second chance at life. my subaru saved my life. i won't ever forget that. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. ♪ a day once dawned ♪ ♪ and it was beautiful ♪ ♪ so, look, see the sights ♪ that you learned [ male announcer ] at&t covers 97% of all americans. get your grad or dad the exclusive samsung strive for just $19.99. only from at&t. for just $19.99. i can't wait to just sit by the pool and relax. yea. 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[faint music playing] problem solved. is the music too loud? ♪ ♪ go to chase.com/sapphire. let's go back to lisa monitoring some of the other top stories in the situation room. >> you could soon get to read through elana kagan's e-mails. the clinton library is releasing pages of e-mails as part of the preparations for her confirmation hearings. this is the final installment of documents related to her service as white house counsel during the clinton administration. hearings are scheduled to begin june 28. imagine this. your tax money going toward checks for dead people. over the last three years the government sent about $180 million worth of benefit checks to deceased americans. as a result, the obama administration is announcing a do not pay list. once the new data base is up and running agencies will have to search it first before sending out payments. and the uh-oh spaghettios is taking on new meaning. campbell's soup is recalling canned spaghettios with meatballs because of a possible under processing. the agricultural department says the recall includes certain cans with a date use by before september, 2011. so far no illnesses have been associated with the products. that's a wrap. >> better safe than sorry. a controversial apology from one republican congressman to bp now putting the entire gop on the defensive. will there be any long-term fallout? how worried should we be about new reports of methane in that gushing oil in the coast? 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[ barks ] [ female announcer ] chef inspired, dog desired. chef michael's canine creations. welcome back to our strategy session. joining us our cnn political contributors, donna brazile and ed rollins. ed, i'll start with you and play a clip from the dnc. they just put out a new adoree acting to the joe barton comments made yesterday. >> bp caused the worst oil spill in american history. now at president obama's direction bp set aside $20 billion for recovery on the gulf coast. if republicans were in charge this is the guy who would be overseeing bp. >> i apologize. >> he apologized to bp and called the recovery fund a tragedy. >> so i apologize. >> republicans apologizing to bp? tell republicans, stop apologizing to big oil. the democratic national committee is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> the week started ed with the democrats and the president having a lot of political problems. the week now ending with the republicans having potentially a lot of political problems. how big of a deal is this? >> it's a big deal and an embarrassment to joe barton who is a good friend of mine and i like very much. obviously if he had his words back i'm sure he'd take them back. if we're still debating in the last weeks of october the oil spill i promise you the obama administration and democrats will pay a very heavy price. i think this is a one day or two day or four day story but at the end of the day it's not our administration that gave the approvals and i think each congressional seat out there that's in jeopardy is going to basically be fought on issues of spending and other things. >> i think that makes a fair point, donna. in the end it's going to depend on is that oil stopping and is the cleanup moving along? that's what americans want to see. >> you know what the republicans failed to understand is that bp took responsibility for this oil spill. bp came forward and said they would pay back any legitimate claims and yet we know from stories on the gulf that many of the residents had not been made whole. and so the obama administration this week stepped up to force or demand bp put aside $20 billion to ensure that those people, the businesses are paid back. if the oil spill is still going on in october, shame on bp and shame on everyone else that we could not contain the flow. right now we're 200 feet from the relief well hitting hopefully the point so they can kill this gushing. and maybe, wolf, maybe we can stop thinking about this in political terms and think about it in terms of how it's impacting the people on the gulf coast. >> let's hope that it works and stops and is cleaned up. people can go back to their way of life. i suspect that's going to take a long, long time given the disaster that has unfolded. on the political front, republicans are very angry as you know at joe barton. joe bonner, republican congressman from alabama, one of those gulf coast states, saying this. i believe the damage of his comments are beyond repair and as such, i am today calling on joe to do the right thing for our conference and immediately step aside as ranking member of the energy and commerce committee. do you think he will step aside, joe barton, or is he going to hold firm? >> i don't think he'll step aside and i don't think there will be any demand beyond what is already there. at the end of this term, joe's tenure is up as the ranking member. if republicans win the majority and it's a debate about who becomes the chairman of the committee and he certainly is a candidate, you might have this debate. i agree with donna. i think we need to get politics out of this. i applaud the president for getting the $20 billion. i wish he had done it three weeks ago. i think he would have had a great speech in the oval office. he would have said i met with bp and they put this $20 billion up to take care of these people. that has to be the first priority of this president, this administration, democrats and republicans alike ought to be behind that. >> ed, do you have any problem at all with the subtext of what joe barton was saying, the attorney general eric holder participated in the negotiations leading up to the $20 billion escrow account and he's also simultaneously pursuing a criminal investigation of bp. is there anything wrong with the appearance that he is involved in both? >> you know, i don't know legally. i'm not a lawyer. one of the few people who survived in washington without being a lawyer. i do think it would have been smarter for him not to have been at the table. you certainly could have had justice represented. but he has become kind of a lightning rod and obviously he's got to do his job on many fronts. this is one big front. he'd have been better not to be in the room. >> do you agree, donna? >> wolf, this is the largest environmental disaster in american history. bp brought their lawyers. they've been resisting, resisting demands to set aside this money. basically they wanted to run the claim process. they are not in the business of running a claim process. that would have been a conflict of interest. i don't care who is around the table. i care that they get this spill contained and make the people of the gulf whole. 11 people died. that should be a criminal scene. 11 people died. so i hope that we get it all right. right now contain the gushing and, wolf, i know you're going to have scientists on later to talk about the methane gas that might create a dead zone in the gulf. look, i love oysters. every friday night i go out and get raw oysters. now i have to go to canada and other parts of the united states to get them. please, let us get the gulf back. and by the way, this is a wonderful time to go down to the gulf. i was down south today. it's a beautiful time. please, encourage people to go down to the gulf to continue our way of life. >> i think a lot of people will go down to the gulf coast for their vacation. precisely because they want to show solidarity with the folks down there. and as you point out most of those beaches are still pristine and beautiful. >> yes. >> let's hope they stay that way. guys, thanks very much. have a great weekend. >> wolf, happy father's day to you and ed. >> thank you very much. >> good luck to all you new orleans. >> thank you. >> jack cafferty is asking does it feel like a recovery summer to you? your e-mail to jack just ahead. and the freeze on deepwater drilling as many face months of unemployment. why some fear their jobs could be gone for years. do what? you made it taste like chocolate. it has 35% of your daily value of fiber. tasty fiber, that's a good one! ok, umm...read her mind. [ male announcer ] fiber one chewy bars. here is a look at some hot shots in new york. in this one, pete flies past the statue of liberty adds part of the red bull training day. >> and in here, a man pastes his fac face. >> and a crisis that could affect 1 million people. >> and in tokyo, an advanced robot is made with human features. hot shots. >> one of these days they will have one who can do the news. >> you andly be out of business. >> just in time. >> a recovery summer to you. president obama and vice president biden say that this is recovery summer. stephen chu says no way, as a small business owner in california, i can tell you that business in our industry is slow with no sign of recovery. it feels like a slap in the face when biden is out there touting how well the stimulus package is working. too bad they don't understand that you can't buy your way out of a recession. jerry in georgia writes that the disconnect is between the rhetoric and the action. scintillating oratory won't change the situation. we need manufacturing and technical support jobs back on u.s. soil to reduce the deficit we need the world to buy things we are make. the world will not buy american roads. we need viable products. we is had them once, but washington gave them away. pat in michigan, well, jack, a long way to go, but my hometown car plant is running three shifts and overtime, and americans have realized that american products are getting better and keeping our money here at home is helping slowly and now if we can slow down the fearmongering in the media we may improve the outlook a little bit. david says absolutely not. i have found a good paying job after being laid off almost a year, but i feel like i could be out of a job any minute and i am saving my money for the next round. patricia says, recovery summer? no, more like recovery nightmare. and kim says, we are not in a recovery, the stimulus spending is the only thing keeping the economy from getting worse and that due to start winding down in the fall. just like in 1932 republican deficit hawks will probably prevent any more stimulus spending which means we will bounce back into the recession/depression again just like we did in the 1930s. gary in alabama sums it up this way, recovery summer my -- they are putting lipstick on a pig. if you want to read more on this, go to my blog, cnn.com/caffertyfile. wolf? >> than you very much. jack cafferty. we will be back in a few moments. while the oil covers the surface of the earth, and washing up on the beaches, scientists warn of a potentially deadly gas. and an ethnic conflict forces tens of thousands from their homes in a place where a strategic air base is crucial to america's afghan effort. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 in fact, they'd spend all of their time dreaming up ways tdd# 1-800-345-2550 to give us more for our money. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i guess i'd just like to see a little more give tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and a little less take, you know? tdd# 1-800-345-2550 if it was up to me, they'd spend a lot more time tdd# 1-800-345-2550 worrying about my bottom line. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 (announcer) at charles schwab, investors rule. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 are you ready to rule? a new jobs report released today gives us a snapshot of louisiana's unemployment figure. the state's figure rose slightly in may. the market added more than 11,000 positions but it is not enough to lower the unemployment rate. thousands of oil workers are facing months of unem plimt because of the moratorium on deepwater drilling in the gulf of mexico, but while bp is setting up a $100 million compensation fund for them, some say that their jobs could be gone for years and possibly forever. chris lawrence talked to some of them. he is in new orleans. >> reporter: look at what happened with one accident, and we can't afford to have that happen ever again, and others wonder why the government can't inspect these rigs and then reopen them one by one as they pass the safety test. there is one vote left for this oilfield cleaning company, and one last bit of oil and drilling mud to scrub. >> once this job is finished, this boat will not long ver a job, because of the moratorium. >> that is how the dominos fall. the president shuts down deepwater drilling which dry docks the boats that supply the rigs. >> we won't be able to clean this boat again, because it can't go off shore to bring the mud back to us to clean. >> reporter: and they say that the six-month moratorium could kill the company on the 20th anniversary. >> if by july or august, deepwater drilling is not in effect, and these rigs are not working, we won't be working, and next week we won't be working. >> reporter: but errin vials is going to work. >> well, how can you look at that ecological might mair rini say, let's keep going? we need answers. >> reporter: president obama will decide when it will be safe for drilling again. >> the government should not say take another 20,000 jobs or so. >> reporter: he says in addition to the $20 billion cleanup fund another $100 million has been set aside to pay the oil rig workers sidelined from the moratorium. >> that removes the pressure on the commission to do it quickly, and do it well. >> reporter: your gut feeling, do the oil well companies stick around and wait out the moratorium? >> some will. those who can go overseas, they will go overseas. you are looking at two to five years before they are back this is not going to affect us for a few months, but for years. >> reporter: and bp says that the funds is for the rigs themselves and not for the thousands of supporting workers, so small businesses like hers will have to go through the claims process, and she feels like a $10,000 here or there from the fund is not going to keep her in business if some of the oil companies leave the gulf. wolf. >> well, chris lawrence, thank you. you have seen the devastation and heard the complaints and now it is your chance to help. join larry king for an all-star relief effort to help rebuild the coast. special two-hour larry king live event taking place monday at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. you are in "the situation room." happening now, growing concern over an invisible threat from the oil disaster, and massive amounts of methane gas with the potential to starve vast stretches of the gulf of oxygen and killing off sea life at a frightening new scale. and politics heating up, and exposing a rift in the gop as two gulf lawmakers call on one of their own to step down from a leadership position because of his apology to bp. and he is the judge that bp wants to handle the hundreds of lawsuits, it is facing. and now the special investigations unit uncovers his ties to the oil industry. we want to welcome our viewer ins the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer, and you are in i'm wolf blitzer, and you are in "the situation room." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com scientists are warning of an invisible threat from the oil disaster, methane gas. it is a threat that has a potential to kill sea life on a massive scale creating vast dead zones in the gulf of mexico. one oceanographer says that the oil from the leaking well contains up to eight times as much methane as typical oil deposits, and that is raising serious new concerns. over to the professor of environmental sciences at louisiana state university is now joining us live. professor, how big of a deal is this? because some scientists say it is a real concern for the environment in the gulf of mexico. >> well, wolf, i think it is a concern. but there is just an awful, awful lot of water out there. i did some quick calculations, and you just take a square mile by a quarter of a mile, and you are down in the part per million range, and the low part per million and less than a part per million, so it is just -- it is possible, but it strikes me that so much water and so much pollution, that this is an extreme problem. most of this methane gas is coming to the surface, and some of it is dissolving in the water column, but it is being dispersed over a large area. incredible. remember, this well, if you were standing back a mile, it look like a fireplug spewing out, so think about all of the water in the water column, and of course, it does not stay there, because ocean currents move it away from the well. so there an incredible amount of water that is a square mile deep, and unbelievable. billions and billions and bill enys of gallons of water, and so i am not terribly concerned. it is something that we need to look at, but the dissolved oxygen level so far taken from the cruises have not found alarmingly low levels of it at depth. >> there is a professor at texas a&m university, and he says this is biggest eruption in modern human history, do you think he is right? >> well, he may know a lot more about that than i do, because i'm not a methane expert, but there is certainly a lot of carbon going into the water column no question about it, but there is an awful lot of water out there, so it sounds like to me it is a bit of an overstatement. >> what would the methane potentially do if it were to continue to come up in huge numbers to sea life for example? >> well, it is not very toxic. what it does is bacteria degrades the methane and uses up oxygen in the degradation, and this is what i referred to when we measure the amount of dissolved oxygen at depth, and so far those measurements have not shown significant lowering of the dissolved oxygen and maybe 10 to 20 to 30%, but not down to zero, so most calculations show it is not reduced to zero. you have to have a concentration, and it is three or four or five parts per million at depth, and it would have to go near zero to produce dead zones and most calculations show that you don't have enough carbon yet. of course, if it keeps going and we could recycle some of the oil as it is dispersed away, but it seems improbable. >> didn't methane create a role in the explosion in the gulf of mexico? >> well, according to the testimony coming out, it was methane bubble that blew up. methane is an explosive gas. it is not toxic, but explosive, and if it is in the water column, of course, it will allow the water to degrade it and use up the oxygen, so the two damages things are an explosion that is not going to occur at depth which might occur on the surface, but it is the loss of oxygen at depth that seems to be most concern, and there is an awful lot of methane going into the gulf, but just remember, think about the amount of water and do a quick calculation to see how many gallons of water are in a cubic mile at that depth. >> and lyle overton, from louisiana state university, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> and we are told that the wildlife is declining and disturbing number of turtles declining right now. mary snow is on the scene and working that part of the story. mary, what is being done to save the turtles? >> well, woolf, they are bringing them to rehabilitation centers in new orleans. it was one month ago today that it got its first oil-covered turtle and now the number is close to 80. they saw a big jump just this week. >> reporter: these are the success stories. oil turtles found in the gulf are being rehabilitated in this treatment center. >> we are the mash unit basically, and it is the m.a.s.h. unit for the sea turtles. >> reporter: michelle kelly is the president for the audubon institute in louisiana. she is coming from across the country to lend support to give antibiotic fluid to the turtles to keep them alive, and this week, the number of turtles brought to them doubled. >> ink that the increase is due to the animals migrating and the oil is thick and heavy and forming what these animals would interpret as a weed line. they think it is a floating bed of sea grass and instead, a oil line and they get it in to hide and eat and lo and behold, they are stuck in it. >> reporter: here are what some of the turtles looked like when they brought here. the crews cleaned them with toothbrushes, and dawn dishwashing soap, and then something unusual >> we open up their mouths and look inside there as well and remove any oil with gauze and mayonnaise as well, and as as well as their eyes. >> reporter: kelly says they have the cleaning process down to 36 minutes until this 110-pound turtle appeared. she is nicknamed big mama. most of these are ridley sea turtles, and experts believe there are fewer than 3,000 left. >> people should look around and be sad, but i am pleased of my team and the audubon research team, and that we are saving so many of them. >> reporter: wolf, what is happening with the turtles, they can't be returned to the gulf any time soon, so they are moved to bigger tanks, and of course, the center is making room for more of the turtles they are expecting. wolf. >> let e's hope they save the turtles. thank you, mary, for the report. jack cafferty is up with the cafferty report. also, republican infighting after one gop lawmaker apologizes to bp, and now two of the colleagues want him to step down from the leadership post. john king and candy crowley are standing by. and turns out there are some considerable ties to the oil industry is the judge that bp would like to have. and nic robertson is on the ground, and reporting from kyrgyzstan. to the seekers of things which are one of a kind. the authentic, the rare, the hard to define. to those who'd climb mountains or sail across seas... for the perfect vanilla or honey from bees. to the lovers of orchards where simple is grown, who treat every bite as a world of its own. to those always searching for what's pure and what's real... from we who believe... we know just how you feel. häagen-dazs. about all the discounts boswe're offering. i've got. i some catchphrases that'llideas make these savings even more memorable. gecko: all right... gecko: good driver discounts. now that's the stuff...? 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[ announcer ] snapple. the best stuff on earth just got better. jack cafferty is here with the cafferty file. jack? >> wolf, traditionally, there is not a lot of love loss between any white house and the news media, and so it was this week. almost two months into the worst environmental disaster in u.s. history president obama spoke to the american people from the oval office about the gulf oil spill, and his speech got panned, pretty much everywhere including msnbc which usually just loves anything that this president does. they said that the president wasn't specific enough, didn't appear to show that he was in charge. they were right. the speech was weak. the next day in the white house briefing room, mr. obama's press secretary robert gibbs was asked about the drubbing that his boss took, and reporters wanted to know what gibbs thought about cable news critics who said that the president is being too hand's off when it comes to the oil crisis. and gibbs responded thusly, quote. i reappreciate the hand on the pulse of america by those who live on cable tv. i don't actually think that that is where all of real america lives, unquote. gibbs also said that if mr. obama decided to run for president based on what the pundits said a year before the primary started, he'd still be in the senate. and despite the speech and the criticism followed, it was the second least watched obama speech ever. the audiences for speeches are beginning to mirror the job approval ratings. here is the question, white house press secretary robert gibbs says that the cable news is not where all of real america lives. is he right? go to cnn.com/caffertyfile, and post a comment on my blog. wolf? >> thank you, jack. we want to show you a story right now you won't see anywhere else. halfway around the world from gulf oil crisis, a violent upheaval is raging in a nation where strategic air base is crucial to america's afghan war effort. the united nations estimate that 300,000 people have been internally displaced by the ethnic violence in kyrgyzstan and another 100,000 are believed to have fled the country. close to 200 people may have died already. cnn has teams of reporters and producers on the ground right in the middle of this. our senior international correspondent nic robertson takes us into one city where all of the sides are suffering. >> reporter: this is a front line up here beyond the soldiers -- sorry? no picture. okay. we put the camera down. the lady in the red shirt is our translator, ieda, and she wants to get to her houses, but it is on the other side of the line. the fighting has divided the city. uzbek enclaves, and this area. she wants to get to her house, but the soldiers say there are snipers in this area. right now, we are crossing over the front line and the soldiers have agreed to take us into an ethnic uzbek neighborhood, and he says the fighting is intense, and we are the only people there, and it is eerie and everything is destroyed. a barricade cuts the road. he calls out to the uzbeks on the other side, and an old man appears. it is her neighbor, an ethnic uzbek, and they are good friends. he tells her that they live in fear. he is emotional. we can come? yeah? they take to us a house. she calls out to her neighbors, here ethnic uzbek and curds and russians live side by side. >> reporter: this is your house? >> yes, it is my dog. >> look at what i found here. >> this is looking like a petro bomb, and you light, this and there is petro inside of the bottle and you throw it, and it will explode. she passes through what is left of a neighbor's house. they are ethnic russian. you can still feel the heat coming off of the rubble. it is still hot. that looks like it was an old microwave cooker, and this is clearly the roof. her house is still standing, but it has been looted. what has happened? >> i don't know. >> reporter: a few minutes is all it takes to grab what little she has left. on the way out, we stopped to talk to her russian neighbors. he blames the fire on criminals not any ethnic group, but adds that he and his wife are frightened of the ethnic rift that has ripped their ethnic community apart. they feel isolated. curfew is coming, and we have to cross back across the ethnic divide. in this conflict, lines have been drawn. ieda and thousands of others are forced to take sides, not clear if there is any going back. nic robertson, cnn, kyrgyzstan. >> it is a horrible story going on over there, and it is a very dangerous story for knick anic team of reporters. for georgia, iran, and lux s someburg, and other areas are sending relief aid. so far these nations with private donors have contributed $2.4 million in aid. the u.s., china and the european union are pledging millions more. the folks there will need it. two republican lawmakers call on one of their colleagues to resign from a top committee post because of his apology to bp. we are watching oil disaster politics heating up. and a risky mission to hold back oil in the gulf coast, and we ride along with the national guard. (announcer) energy security. climate protection. challenges as vast as the space race a generation ago. and vital to global security. to reach this destination, our engineers are exploring every possibility. from energy efficiency to climate monitoring. securing our nations clean energy future is all a question of how. and it is the how that will make all the difference. and what it doesn't cover can cost you some money. lisa sylvester is monitoring the other stories in "the situation room" right now. what is going on? >> well, it was loud and quick and then he moved. 49-year-old convicted killer rodney lee gardner was executed by a firing squad in utah early this morning. journalists who witnessed the execution said it happened quickly and that gardner's arm moved briefly after he was shot. he is the third person in 33 years to die by firing squad in the united states. he was executed for killing an attorney in 1985. a postcard sent by a bosnian soldier in the world war ii finally reached the family. a soldier took with him some of the 200,000 postcards he has collected over the years, and he accidentally met the world war i soldier's grandson and recognized the name and dug up the photo postcard he bought for $50 at an antiques show in california and now it is in the safe with other family treasures. it is dated june 15th, 1915. and anyone in new york who gets a sudden urge to noodle out the music can play for free on pianos placed throughout the city. it is an art installation. pianos placed at strategic locations. an artist came out with the idea which played out in london and other cities, and this is the first insulation in new york city, and the pianos will be donated later to schools and community groups. so if you are in new york, you can bang out a tune on the piano there. >> i took piano lessons when i was a little boy. did you? >> i did, but you need a lot of patience to stick with it. >> you are like me. i like to play a little bit once in a while, but i'm not very good. >> i would like to take lessons. >> if i were in new york, i would sit down with "bumble boogie" oar something like that. he started out apologizing for bp, and now congressman joe barton is getting heat from two colleagues who are demanding he step down from his committee post. and also, giant helicopters with giant sandbags and can they hold out with the sandbags? we will ride with them as they carry out their work. and they are noisy and constant, and what is that? noises from the world cup. >> we don't need anybody to tell us to stop the vuvuzelas, because this is our tradition. 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[ male announcer ] v-scan from ge healthcare. a pocket sized imaging device that will help change the way doctors see patients. that's better health for more people. ♪ the politics of the gulf oil disaster is heating up, especially since bp yielded to government pressure to set up a $20 million compensation fund, and it is popular with the public, but controversial in some circles. lisa is looking into this. what is going on? >> well, the $20 million fund is seen as a major victory for the white house, but joe barton called it a shake down, and he got into a lot of hot water for those words, but one thing that barton did say that political analysts are agreeing on is that the fund is unprecedented. >> it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what i would characterize as a shakedown. in this case, a $20 billion shakedown. i apologize. >> reporter: outrageous and insensitive is the bipartisan reaction to joe barton's comments. the texas congressman has since swallowed the words which he first framed as an apology to bp and a day later, the issue is not put to rest. >> people from the gulf are suffering from bp's negligence and recklessness, and the republicans in congress are apologizing to bp. >> reporter: but some analysts say wait, barton may have had a point that got lost in the less than delicate wording. the kato institute favors smaller government and less regulation, and dan mitchell agrees with barton in one respect, that the white house agreement to get bp to pay up front before any claims have been litigated in court is highly unusual. >> what the president did in terms of ordering a private company to set aside a pot of money without any ju-dicial oversight or obedience to what the law says, that troubles me. >> reporter: and mitchell says it is symptomatic of a recekrec trend that started under president bush, and continued with president obama. and bailing out wall street, and coming to the aid of beleaguered automakers and now to the bp claims process. it is all enough to fire up the conservative claims show. >> it is outrageous and unconstitutional what they are doing. >> reporter: but the polls show that the public, overwhelmingly 92% show that the situation in the gulf of mexico is out of control, and 63% approve there must not be any limit of what they should say. and they it is a is unusual give ten amount here, but keep in mind that bp agreed to it. there is a p.r. value here, because fit look -- if it look they are cooperating especially with talk of criminal investigation and the stock prices falling 50% since the crisis started, wolf. >> give us analysis or comparison and how it compares to the exxon "valdez" oil spill? >> well, this is very, very different. exxon paid $2 billion for cleanup fines and compensation. a jury awarded $5 million in additional damages which was litigated for years before the supreme court set the punitive damages at $5 million, so no up front funds in the case of the exxon "valdez." >> different situation. thank you for that. congressman joe barton's apology to bp is calling for two republicans to ask him to step down from the energy and xherts committee. joe boner says that the damage from the comment is beyond repair, and congressman jeff miller is also calling for him to step down. we will talk about this with candy crowley, our senior political correspondent, and our -- is it chief political correspondent? >> yes. >> and host of "sunday morning" at 9:00 a.m., and john king who has a show "john king usa" coming up at the top of the show. >> and i'm happy to be here. >> how serious is the rift, candy, in the aftermath of the congressman's comments? >> well, if you are asking me, does it have long legs and will it go far into the future, i seriously doubt it. for joe barton, it is bad short term news, a touchdown pressure -- and the pressure is high for him to come down, and for those criticizing him in the republican party were not all that crazy about him to begin with, so, some of that is playing into it. and also, the republicans need to distance themselves as far as they can, and him being demoted on the energy committee is the way to do it. >> and the democrats will try to keep it alive as long they can. >> they are, and they will. the democrats are saying that the if the republicans take control of congress in november, joe barton would be the head of the committee, but not exactly, because there are term limits on committees, and his spot is up in four months. now, he could say he wants a waiver to the term limit policy, and he probably won't get one. so the democratic ad is misleading. to say if they win, he is chairman is not so. >> we have all covered congress for a long time when the leadership have slapped down a congressman as quickly as they did to barton yesterday. >> well, i mean, if there is one thing that everyone should get if they ar worth their salt in politics is that siding with bp in this particular point is not a good idea. so, it did not take much to understand that they had to undo that quickly. >> and yet another example, this is a year in which the wind is at the republicans' backs, and the first mid year, and the president's standings are coming down including the handling of this issue, and what do the republicans do on the day that tony hayward is supposed to be the bipartisan pinata, one of their leading members steps in it, and they become the controversy, and there are two or three of them banging their heads against the wall saying this is our year, quit skrug it up. >> we wanted some republicans to come on the talk about it, but they don't want to talk about it. >> one of the reasons they acted so quickly is so we would stop talking about it. >> and one of the things they told him is to not try to explain yourself and put out the statement, and then go to enjoy some private time somewhere. >> he has worked hard all of these years to get to this position, and if the republicans are the majority i would assume he is anxious to head that committee, and henry waxman is the democratic chairman and that is a powerful committee in the house of representatives. >> it is a bigger committee over there, and stranger things could happen and if it happens tomorrow, it would not be barton, and agree, john, he is not going to get grandfathered back on to the committee. it would just be unsustainable. >> one other quick point, a lot of the republicans think that there are legitimate questions about the white house involvement in this and the administration claim fund, but slush fund, and shakedown, and apologizing to tony hayward crossed the line. >> we will have more on this on "john king, usa." and more on "candy crowley sunday morning." and more trouble for bp with the company facing countless lawsuits and searching for a judge to hear them all, and could the pick be too close for comfort? and down in louisiana barrier island, a group of louisiana guardsmen taking the dangerous job to take itt off of shore. we will go inside of the operation. stay with us right here inside of "the situation room." 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[ barks ] [ female announcer ] chef inspired, dog desired. chef michael's canine creations. bp is facing hundreds of lawsuits stemming from the gulf oil disaster and asking for one federal judge to oversee all of them and not unusual in a situation like this, but there is some concern about the judge they have requested. so as abbie boudreau of special investigations unit discovered the judge has considerable ties to oil industry. >> reporter: this man, lynn hughes is the federal judge in houston, texas, that bp would like to supervise all of the lawsuits filed against it. essentially, judge hughes could make decisions worth billions of dollars to bp, and that casts a spotlight on his own financial ties to the oil and gas industry. judge hughes owns land that produces oil. land that he leases to oil companies. he gets annual royalties from whatever they pump out. in 2008, the most recent records available, he received royalty payments from conoco phillips between $50,000 and $100,000, and proceeds y sun oil of $ $15,000 or less and also from devon energy of $15,000 or less. and also records going back to 2003 shows that judge hughes received hundreds of thousands of royalties from a dozen companies, and judge hughes says that he is transparent, and all of the perm asonnal records are online. >> and he is not just a judge who happens to be dabbling, but he is in fact a participant in the industry he is trying to judge. >> reporter: and judge hughes travels to speak at meetings held by merp association of geologist, and he does not get a fee to speak there, but they do pay for his accommodations and travel. in 1989, judge hughes presided over a case involving devon energy one of the companies that pays him royalties, but he did not disclose that at the hearing and the company ended up winning and awarded $3.9 million. >> the best practice out there and what judges across the country are encouraged to do is if there is any doubt to put some sunshine on the problem and turn the cards face-up, metaphors, of course, and make it clear to the parties what your potential interest is. >> reporter: and that is back to bp and why it wants judge hughes to over see the oil spill in the gulf. they told us quote, judge lynn hughes, the judge to whom the first federal case in houston was assigned is appropriate to oversee these cases. >> this is not a rank and file case, but it is a case involving the biggest environmental disaster in the country, and we should be particularly concerned about the judiciary. >> reporter: and judge hughes' rulings go back three years and he ruled in favor of oil companies just a little more often than he ruled against him. lawyers who know judge hughes tell cnn he is fair and tough, but environmental attorneys say even the request by bp to have this judge sit on the bench is quote outrageous and unseemly. abbie boudreau, cnn, atlanta. >> and man against nature, and damaged by a manmade disaster. a team from louisiana national guard is lifting sandbags to the barrier island to block oil washing toward beaches and sensitive wetland. we rode along on the risky mission. >> reporter: the mission today is that we are flying sandbags out to the pelican island which is 600 miles from where we are in the barrier islands in the gulf. we are putting down sandbags. >> my guys are from franklin, louisiana. underneath the helicopter, you are standing with all of your strength to just stand up, and pulling this eyelet to get underneath this helicopter, and the helicopter comes inches above your head and it is six feet off of the ground before the guys can hook it. once they hook it, they have to run out from under it, and it is like you are a sprinter. once it is hooked up, it is flown out seven miles to schofield island, and it building a wall in the cuts and even now on pelican island, it is white, and on the other half of the cut it is oil, and it is soaking into the sandbags and it is doing the job to keep the oil out of our marshes. when that hook is dropped, that helicopter just kind of jumps up, and it is in your throat. working on a project like this being from southern louisiana makes us feel like we are doing something to protect the marshlands and the wildlife and keep the state from being infected with oil >> that is bill mcdonnell our producer doing that report. and president obama pitches the stimulus plan, but shouldn't he be focusing on the gulf oil spill crisis instead? that is what some are asking like dennis kucinich, and eric ericson, and they will join john king usa at the top of the hour. and newly released documents raising questions about the supreme court nominee elena kagan and what they are and how possibly they could affect the confirmation hearings. stay with us. you are in "the situation room." this site has a four-star hotel for $159. should i try priceline instead? >> no it's a sale. nothing beats a sale! wrong move! you. you can save up to half off that sale when you name your own price on priceline. but this one's a deal...trust me. it's only pretending to be a deal. here, bid $79. got it. wow! you win this time good twin! there's no disguising the real deal. some new potential questions are emerging that could potentially affect elena kagan's supreme court nomination hearing. the conservative magazine "the national review" unearthed some documents of when she served in the clinton white house as a legal adviser, and our correspondent ed henry is working out the details to get the white house reaction and explain what the issue is and what the white house is saying about it? >> well, wolf, the con text is that it the white house itself releasing various documents from the clinton days to show elena kagan's record, and what is really gotten some controversy kicked up here is a memo dating back to 1996, and it was a debate of whether or not a various nonprofit group and volunteer workers would be exposed to legal liability like the national rifle association or the kkk and it is important to know that another clinton aide and not elena kagan wrote this memo and basically saying that the groups could be improperly shielded from legal liability, and some of the democrats on the hill at the time were lumping the nra together with the kkk and kagan who had a copy of the memo had a phone conversation with the debate, and in the margin she wrote about it and referred to the fact that some democrats were calling people like the nra bad guys, and some of the groups in the debate. and what white house officials are insisting is that she did not write the memo and she was not calling the group bad guys, but we were given a statement, that it is not simply credible to say that the jotted down notes reflect anything but preliminary research on legal questions about what organizations could have in legislation, and the organizations discussed reflect the public debate over the legislation at this time. so this is not calling them bad guys or lumping them together with a racist group like the kkk and the nra is not buying this and they insist it is outrageous that the nra was lumped in with the kkk and demanding that it is a big issue at her confirmation hearings, and those hearings of course start a weak from monday and that is the only thing that the white house and the nra agree on, this and other memos will be front and center at the confirmation hearings. >> yes, thank you, ed for that report. is robert gibbs correct when he says that cable news is not where all of america lives? jack cafferty will read your e-mail. and also, a look at south africa's iconic horns at the soccer tournament. you either love them or hate them. >> i can't stand it. it is making me crazy. >> they are so awful. it is like a bug the whole time. . >> let's check in with jack for the cafferty file. jack? >> question this hour, white house press secretary robert gibbs says that cable news is not quote where all of real america lives. is he right? el in illinois writes that my brother has been unemployed for a year and had to cancel cable tv to cut expenses. he now finds himself living in the real america that gibbs is referring himself living in the real america that gibbs is referring to. >> gives is wrong. cable news channels are followed by those who closely follow politics and current events. i feend those uninformed and less interested only watch the evening news. right on. maybe it's wishful thinking on gibbs' part but in reality we really hope he's smarter than he portrays himself to be. laurie in pennsylvania, sounds like someone who can't take criticism. frankly the obama administration desieves to be criticized, constantly spending when everyone including retired alan greenspan tells you you need to stop, putting band-aids on ton employment problem and oil spills that need to be stopped. the lists go on to on. it's time to listen to the criticism. it's time for the obama administration to change how u.s. issues are being dealt with. >> he needs to be fired. his answers are always spear snark with no substance and tons of arrogance. what he and everyone else would know about where real america lives wouldn't fill a thimble. chris writes where does he think we live. we can't afford to go to the movies. where does robert gibbs live? it appears he's moving a hand pup pet. if you want to read more on, this you can go to my blog at cnn.com/caffertyfile. >> i was thinking about what he said. i don't know this to be a fact. i suspect people who get basic cable and watch the news -- our news shows, for example, i bet they vote in higher percentages than people that don't basically watch a lot of the political news shows on television. >> you might be absolutely right. i'd be inclined to agree with you. i tell you this. i get thousands and thousands of e-mails every week and the people that write to me on this program about the issues we raise are real america. i hear from every kind of cross-section of society you can imagine, the rich and the poor, the employed, the unemployed, the haughty and the humle. but it's a good cross-section, and it's the real deal. you can tell when you read this stuff whether it's genuine or not. and the people who respond to this program, that's real america. >> and one other point i should make. the people who watch the cable news shows are probably little richer, a little more intel jnt and they're probably more likely not only to vote but get involved in politics and become political activists. so don't say things about basic cable viewers. i love those guys. >> i didn't say anything. >> i know. robert gibbs was saying something bad. >> robert gibbs has, you know, issues. he doesn't like anybody to suggest that they're not doing a wonderful job down there. but you know what? they're not doing a wonderful job down there. >> i think our viewers are smart and they're educated. they're influential and they keep on watching, and thank you for that. jack, have a great weekend. >> you. too. see you monday. horns aplenty in south america. is it too much of a good thing. >> reporter: can you equate the view view zell la to another loud sound? >> if you were about 35 feet away from a 747 on takeoff you'd probably get in the neighborhood of 125 decibels. >> do you watch the world cup? >> no. >> reporter: why? >> i'm more into baseball. ♪ ♪ do u gonna be there? ♪ are u sure u gonna call back? ♪ ♪ when am calling up and all that? ♪ ♪ ♪ can't u hear i'm sick? ♪ i'm lovesick ♪ can't u hear it explode? ♪ all down, all down gecko: yeah... fastest growing for the past 5 years! obviously people love saving money. woman: welcome to the conference. here's your nametag, sir... annnd for you. gecko: uh... no i'll be ok, thanks. woman: but how will people know who you are? gecko: uh... you mean "the gecko"? 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is it distrakcting to you? >> reporter: fifa, the world soccer association said buzz off, forcing broadcasters to tirnger with audio effort in an effort to diminish the hum. but one man's annoying buzz is another man's nirvana. >> sometimes it sounds like the eternal ohm. it's like ohmmmm. it's very meditative. it's beautiful. >> reporter: maybe that's because he's south african. vuvuzelas are welcome at his restaurant in new york where his fell low countrymen are watching the world cup. >> you have to embrace what the culture's all about. >> reporter: conclusion? >> too loud. dangerous. >> reporter: acoustic consultant alan firestein is not embracing the view viu alan firestein is not embracing the view vivuzelavuzela. he's warning fans in the stadiums to wear ear plugs. >> reporter: can you equate it to another loud sound? >> if you were 35 feet away from a 747 at takeoff you'd get near 145 decibels. >> do you watch the world cup? >> no. >> larry: why? >> i'm more into baseball. >> reporter: i keep get iting e-mails telling us to shut it off. >> we don't need nobody to tell us to stop our vuvuzelas. this is our tradition. >> reporter: here i wanted to blow my own horn. >> this is not easy. >> reporter: how do you do it. >> like a trumpet. you go -- a lot of pressure. >> reporter: many people use that sound watching my reports. apparently not as easy as it looks. >> close your lips. and then -- yeah.

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