This shift toward Holder, however, deserves scrutiny. There have been plenty of documented stories of reluctance toward investigation from Treasury and the SEC and HUD. This centers all the attention on DoJ, however. It’s not entirely credible that Holder is operating independently to slow-walk an investigation that has been slow-walked by virtually every official in the Obama Administration at one point or another. It feels as if Holder has become the “rotating villain” in this scheme, someone to deflect attention away from the whole policy framework to let the banks off for their crimes. Ultimately, the buck has to stop at the very top, with the President.

Over the next several weeks, these bank accountability leaders told me they will step up their direct efforts against the banks and also the Administration.

The New Bottom Line, which has been focused on anti-bank actions around foreclosures and Wall Street greed, has launched a “Move Our Money” campaign, which encourages local governments to divest their funds from big banks. In over 50 cities across the country, coalition members will press for legislation to move local government funds. November 5 is move your money day.

When ordinary citizens take their savings out of big banks, it has a small effect, but it would take lots and lots of take-up for that to really hurt those behemoth financial institutions which have such market share. By contrast, when a municipality, particularly a large municipality, moves their money out of a big bank, that can have an impact on behavior. This is particularly true if the municipal governments cite specific reasons, like a failure to modify mortgages for their constituents or a failure to maintain dilapidated, foreclosed properties, for moving the funds.

Rose Mary Gudiel, a homeowner in Bassett, CA, has just been served with an eviction notice. And as she says in this testimonial, she’s refusing to go. And her neighbors are rallying to her side.

By now the political world has heard about Mitt Romney’s statement to a group of hecklers at the Iowa State Fair yesterday. Explaining why he didn’t want to tax corporations to lower the deficit and pay for social insurance programs, Romney stated that “corporations are people, my friends.” This received the requisite amount of attention from partisans. But who initiated the exchange?

It turns out that the hecklers were a group of about a dozen members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI). They are a grassroots community organization that is part of a broader coalition called The New Bottom Line, which seeks to challenge big bank interests on behalf of everyday communities. And they have a message for members of both parties who visit Iowa during caucus season. I spoke with Dave Goodner, an Iowa CCI organizer who was part of the exchange yesterday.

Other countries get results from voting. We don’t. Here are two things you can do.