The Times-Picayune of New Orleans reports that protesters held a sit-in at the offices of the Housing Authority of New Orleans today, “while public housing residents remain shut out of their former complexes two years after Hurricane Katrina.” The newspaper reported that “New Orleans police and National Guard troops have sealed off the streets surrounding”…

COLETTE PICHON BATTLE Pichon Battle’s family was displaced after Hurricane Katrina, and her mother is still in Texas. Pichon Battle founded Moving Forward as an advocacy group in Slidell (northeast of New Orleans) after the storms. She said today: “We have started a campaign against FEMA’s attempt to ‘recoup’ funds given to Katrina survivors —…

Michael Chertoff, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, is reportedly among the candidates to replace Alberto Gonzales. CHRIS KROMM Kromm is the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies and co-author of the new report “Blueprint for Gulf Renewal: The Katrina Crisis and a Community Agenda for Action.” He said today: “To…

MICHAEL RATNER President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ratner said today: “Until we get rid of the entire cabal, which includes Bush and Cheney, that has engaged in torture, off-shore prisons such as Guantanamo, violations of the Geneva Conventions and warrantless wiretapping, there is little to celebrate in Gonzales’ resignation. Guantanamo continues, as does…

On Thursday, August 23, at 1 p.m. ET, the Institute for Southern Studies holds a phone-in media briefing to release “Blueprint for Gulf Renewal,” an in-depth investigation into the state of the Gulf Coast on the two-year anniversary of Katrina. The study features a report on “Where did the Katrina money go?” and presents results…

DEAN BAKER Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Baker said today: “There is a simple and direct way in which the federal government can help out millions of moderate-income families struggling to keep their homes: They can simply change the rules on foreclosure to allow moderate-income homeowners the option to remain in…

DAVID ENDERS Enders is a freelance journalist who has just returned from Iraq, where he spent time throughout the country. He said today: “The Bush administration says that ‘the surge is working,’ but the realities of Iraq are that violence is increasing, the electrical and water systems are approaching a state of collapse and most…

Last week a former top CNN official defended his visits to the Pentagon for a “thumbs-up” on retired generals who were prospective CNN news analysts before the cable network hired them to provide on-air assessments of the Iraq war. Former CNN news chief Eason Jordan — quoted in an article on the IraqSlogger.com site, owned…

DAVID COLE Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Cole said today: “The conviction shows that the government did not need to assert the extraordinary power to detain Padilla without charges for several years. But at the same time, because of how they treated Padilla in detention and others in CIA black sites, the government was…

“The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization,” the New York Times reports. It would be “the first time that the United States has added the armed forces of any sovereign government to its list of terrorist organizations.” REESE ERLICH Erlich, the author of the forthcoming…