A year after the BP disaster erupted in the Gulf, Cherri Foytlin walked from her home in New Orleans to the White House, to let President Obama hear firsthand the suffering that continues to affect the residents of the Gulf Coast. Sadly, she couldn’t get an invitation to get past the gate. (Rubbing salt in her wounds — she got to watch Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles stroll past her on the sidewalk on their way inside.)

Meanwhile, BP and certain parts of the government continue to try to spin the news, limiting media access to heroic rescuers, limiting scientific access to spill sites, and otherwise trying to hide the record and avoid accountability.

Access. It’s the name of the game.

A brief look at what’s happening in the news on the morning of July 6th, 2010.

Dr. Samantha Joye, professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, whose research team first spotted evidence of vast undersea plumes of oil near the BP oil disaster, was on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night to explain the theory of how plumes form and the steps they were taking to confirm and plot the plumes’ size and reach.