Between what are seen by many as President Obama’s weak proposals and Mitt Romney’s loving embrace, bankers have little to fear from either administration, and that leaves the rest of America on perilously thin economic ice. Neil Barofsky, who held the thankless job of special inspector general in charge of policing TARP, the bailout’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, joins Bill to discuss the critical yet unmet need to tackle banking reform and avoid another financial meltdown.

Currently a senior fellow and adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law, Barofsky is the author of Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.

Full transcript after the jump.

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By Cora Currier -- ProPublica

Florida has the highest percentage of home loans in foreclosure in the country. So why is more than $300 million that could help homeowners sitting unused?

Florida was awarded those millions in February as part of the $25 billion national settlement between five of country's biggest banks and forty-nine states and the District of Columbia. The settlement resolved allegations of wrongful foreclosures and other mortgage servicing abuses, and required banks to offer some homeowners the opportunity to modify their loans or refinance, or, in some cases pay homeowners directly for wrongful foreclosure.

The banks also had to pay $2.5 billion directly to state governments. Florida's sum was the largest, after California, in part a measure of how deeply the mortgage crisis affected the sunshine state.

Yet Florida is one of just a few states where the Attorney General has not announced plans for a significant portion of the money. We've contacted every state to find out what they were doing with that money. Of the $2.5 billion going to states, just over a billion dollars has been pledged for housing-related programs, while a roughly equal amount has been diverted to plug budget holes or fund programs unrelated to the foreclosure crisis. $378 million is still to be determined, and almost all of that is Florida's.

Florida's funds are caught between the Attorney General, Republican Pam Bondi, and the Republican state legislature. Bondi has pledged to make the money available to homeowners; earlier this year, she called for suggestions from the public. Some state lawmakers, however, insist that it needs to go through the regular appropriations process u2014 where it could potentially be siphoned off into other programs. And that wouldn't happen until March, when the legislative session begins.

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Good morning, today is Saturday, October 27, 2012.

On this day...

In 1904, The first rapid transit subway opened, in New York City.

In 1978, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1997, The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 554.26 points, forcing the stock market to shut down for the first time since the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

In 2005, White House counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court after three weeks of criticism from fellow conservatives.

In 2008, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was convicted of seven corruption charges for lying about free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor. A judge later dismissed the case, saying prosecutors had withheld evidence.

Your morning open thread begins below.

"The Koch Brothers and Their Amazing Climate Change Denial Machine" is a short animation detailing the effort of billionaire oil barons Charles and David Koch to undermine belief in climate change and prevent legislation that threatens their profits. By pouring money into bogus scientific studies and funding think tanks and front groups, the public is led to believe a genuine scientific debate is raging. In truth, as one climate denier candidly admits, those doubting the science are just a small, if brilliantly coordinated, minority.

An estimated 40 people were killed Friday morning when a bomb detonated at a mosque in Faryab province during a prayer gathering marking the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Over half of those killed are reportedly police, officials said. The Taliban is suspected to have carried out the attack. The bomber’s target appeared to be regional police chief Gen. Abdul Khaliq Aqsai, as the explosives were detonated as soon as he got in his vehicle. Aqsai survived the attack. The incident happened just before President Hamid Karzai repeated his call for the Taliban to join the government.

Video via The Guardian.

This may well be a new low for a bank. On the morning of October 10, 2012, Niko Black was in bed when her front door was kicked open by the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Black, who has terminal cancer, crawled to her wheelchair as four-to-six deputies entered and proceeded to hold a gun to her face. She was then taken outside without any of her medication. When she called the Garden Grove Police, they did nothing. Since all of her medication and other means of treatment were in her home, Black began to have difficulty breathing, and very quickly and had to be taken to the hospital.

Via:

The 37-year-old Mescalero Apache woman, who suffers from a rare, malignant and metastatic form of cancer, refused to open the door, saying that they had no legal right to be there. On the other side was a taped copy of a court order obtained from Federal Bankruptcy Judge Theodore C. Albert in late August that she firmly believes should have prevented the OCSD from carrying out the eviction. The deputies acted anyway.

"They break down my door," Black recounts. "I'm sitting there in my wheel chair. I'm about 100 pounds of shriveled-up cancer and a threat to no one."

What came next, she says, was much more harrowing. "Sergeant Bob Sima puts a gun to my face, finger on the trigger, no safety and walks around me," Black states, pausing to emotionally gather herself. "There's no reason, except for to threaten my life, for an intimidation factor, to put a gun to my head."

With neighbors lining up outside watching, Black's health began to worsen. "I needed my medication, I couldn't breathe and I was having a seizure," she said, claiming that deputies were unresponsive to concerns about her condition; one officer even remarked that she 'looked good' to him. An ambulance finally arrived at her friend's behest and she was forcibly removed from her home and hospitalized.

If this situation weren't complicated enough, according to an online petition circulating in support of Black, she never even had a mortgage with Wells Fargo!

Since the eviction, Federal Judge Theodore C. Albert (who signed the court order favoring Black) has ordered Wells Fargo and county representatives to appear in court on November 13 to explain the eviction.

Uh oh. WikiLeaks is publishing Defense Department documents that reportedly cover detainment policies in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay post-9/11. Julian Assange said that the files show a “dark space” where law and rights don’t necessarily apply. The documents also reveal a harsh but “formal” interrogation policy -- as well as a policy of destroying interrogation recordings.

Reuters:

The WikiLeaks website began publishing on Thursday what it said were more than 100 U.S. Defense Department files detailing military detention policies in camps in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in the years after the September 11 attacks on U.S. targets.

In a statement, WikiLeaks criticized regulations it said had led to abuse and impunity and urged human rights activists to use the documents, to be released over the next month, to research what it called "policies of unaccountability".

The statement quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying: "The 'Detainee Policies' show the anatomy of the beast that is post-9/11 detention, the carving out of a dark space where law and rights do not apply, where persons can be detained without a trace at the convenience of the U.S. Department of Defense."

"It shows the excesses of the early days of war against an unknown 'enemy' and how these policies matured and evolved," it said, and led to "the permanent state of exception that the United States now finds itself in, a decade later."

Assange is still staying inside Ecuador's embassy in central London to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning about an alleged rape and sexual assault. Assange and his supporters believe that the extradition to Sweden is a ruse, and that Sweden will then extradite him to the United States to face charges related to the publishing of leaked U.S. military and diplomatic documents.

Good morning, today is October 26, 2012, and TGIF!

Streaming video by Ustream

Update: 11:15pm -- Some guy ran screaming straight into the Oakland Police, he was "detained" by the OPD, and possibly arrested. It seems the protesters have cleared out any belongings, and just a few people are hanging around outside the plaza. The park is closed. One person was discovered sleeping in a tree, police shook their heads and walked away. Still what seems to be a rather small group of police in the area, some are security guards, and now they're headed back to the guy in the tree.

Occupiers are estimating over 400 people occupied the plaza and participated in the march that was nearly completely peaceful. Security is now bribing the guy in the tree with free pizza, and a twenty-dollar bill, but he doesn't seem to be going for it, per livestream.

And it looks like tree man is climbing down from his branch. OPD gave him the pizza, two water bottles and $25...not a bad deal. He has taken his pizza, and gone into the subway. Interesting evening, Occupy Oakland. I'm signing off for the night.

Update: 11:00pm -- Via Twitter:

Slide show presentation still going on in Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland Police coming in trying to close the park, after Mayor Quan allegedly said the Occupiers could spend the night(Via Twitter, no confirmation). Only one arrest so far, a man who hit a police officer with a rock, was not with the occupy group, and occupiers say he was from out of town.

Susie Cagle ‏@susie_c

#O25 #OO history tour (minus Traveler's Aid failure): strange & self-obsessed. Curious if they'll spend night but less curious than before.

Susie Cagle ‏@susie_c

Remembering talking to #OO ppl last Nov & Dec about actions moving beyond the plaza occupation. Those ppl weren't there tonight. #O25

Update: 9:15pm -- Occupy Oakland march has ended, all are back at Oscar Grant Plaze...will they spend the night?

Update: 7:44pm -- The street lights in the area where the protesters are marching have all been shut off. If this is intentional, not sure what the point would be.

Update: 6:41pm -- Scott Olsen is being interviewed now on the livestream from Oakland. Businesses in the area have vowed to stay open during their normal hours, but many have covered their windows with plywood ahead of the Occupy march.

Members of Occupy Oakland have begun to gather at Oscar Grant Plaza this afternoon. The march is set for 7:00 p.m. PST, and then they plan to return to the Plaza to re-establish their former encampment. City officials and police have said they will not allow that to happen. The park "closes" at 10 p.m., so arrests are anticipated, if not violence as well.

In this video, a flashback to 2011, Occupy the Boardroom:

"We brought 99 red balloons down to the headquarters for Goldman Sachs where we hoisted up messages from the 99%. Our balloons totally got their attention — I could see people in offices and board rooms waving and snapping photos with their iphones. So strange. We didn’t quite reach the penthouse, but we did manage to carry them up to the 20th floor. Quite a feat!"

"We also had a couple of signs: “Goldman Sachs -you’ve got mail!” “Can you hear me now?”; “Goldman Sachs - we need to talk.”'

Now the latest from Occupy the Boardroom:

"We are honored and humbled to announce that, because of the power of the stories that everyone has submitted since we created this space, the non-profit publishing house N+1 has agreed to publish a book made up of your letters to the 1 percent!

This isn’t their book and it isn’t our book. It’s your book, drawn from the thousands of stories submitted to Occupy the Board Room since we launched in October of 2011. These are stories from Democrats and Republicans, property-owners and struggling families, business people and retirees, immigrants and Mayflower descendants, religious leaders and fervent capitalists, and a lot of bank employees past and present.

You’ve been polite, funny, outraged, moving, instructive, and inspiring.

And that’s why we are putting your words in print – so that you can inspire the creation of an America that works for all of us."

I had the great privilege of being able to help in a small way on this project, and it was amazing to see so many poignant letters pour in from all across the country. There used to be a great stigma attached to having financial problems, and especially for families who were going through having their home foreclosed on -- they suffered in silence, and felt ashamed. Occupy the Boardroom ended that silent suffering as people began to realize that they weren't alone.

This book, "The Trouble is the Banks: Letters to Wall Street" is a piece of history that documents the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it's told through the letters written by Americans, in their own words. You can order a copy at Occupy the Boardroom's website now.