BP OIL SPILL  "DRILL BABY DRILL"

Following is a transcript of President Obama's news conference Thursday on the government's response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as released by the White House:

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Before I take your questions, I want to update the American people on the status of the BP oil spill -– a catastrophe that is causing tremendous hardship in the Gulf Coast, damaging a precious ecosystem, and one that led to the death of 11 workers who lost their lives in the initial explosion.

Sarah Palin is weighing in on the BP oil spill, specifically, who is to blame for it and/or who is to blame for the spill taking so long to stop. http://tinyurl.com/2wfzb28

Who can forget these excerpts that Palin uttered during her Vice Presidential debate with Joe Biden:

""The chant is "drill, baby, drill." And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into.

TAKE ACTION STAMP OUT WILDLIFE LOSS

A shorebird futilely dunked its face in water repeatedly in an effort to remove oil. Brown pelicans AKA BP with matted feathers struggled to lift off the ground and remain airborne. Dead jellies littering a beach bore telltale black oil residue in their clear bells.

Even the marsh grasses are dying, upsetting the balance of a fragile marsh ecosystem. To date the official count of dead birds is 393, while the BP oil leak also appears to have claimed the lives of at least 153 endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles and incalculable numbers of dolphins. An accurate accounting of the wildlife death toll from the oil leak will likely never be made due to the combined effects of carnivorous predators and the remote locations in which many marsh and ocean creatures succumb to the oil fouling their habitats.