This morning on MSNBC, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told Chris Hayes that "the people's uprising" should be credited for renewed efforts to investigate and prosecute big banks.

The people's uprising, of course, is Occupy Wall Street, and the renewed efforts about which Schneiderman speaks is a "nationwide probe of wrongdoing in the mortgage-backed securities market" that he has just been named to co-lead.

Schneiderman's (nearly) direct reference to Occupy Wall Street as a motivating impetus for the national probe explicitly confirms what many have been arguing: that the nation's protest movement has shaken the halls of government at its deepest levels by transforming the national conversation.

Our collective obsession, fed by the talking heads, is no longer on the deficit. Instead, a major focus is now on the connection between income inequality and financial corruption. In short, on the personal deficits individuals and families must contend with due to the corrupt stranglehold financial institutions and the one percent have on our elected leaders.

"Banks Got Bailed Out. We Got Sold Out."

Schneiderman's utterance this morning comes on the heels of President Obama's State of the Union address this week, which echoed many of the themes Occupy Wall Street has injected into our national consciousness, specifically themes of economic fairness and the need for the wealthiest Americans (1%) to pay their fair share.

Joe Garofoli of the San Fransisco Chronicle wrote after the SOTU address:

Linking the dominant themes in Obama's nationally televised address Tuesday to the mantras of the Occupy Wall Street movement would have been unthinkable five months ago. But in having its message echoed in the State of the Union address, the Occupy movement reached a milestone in changing the national conversation. "Once you say the definition of my campaign is fairness, you don't have to say anything else," said Lawrence Rosenthal, an expert on social movements who directs UC Berkeley's Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements. "It is the central tenet" of the Occupy movement, he added.

Indeed, having such themes echo would have been unthinkable five months ago. But we are five months into this movement, and the profound way in which Occupy Wall Street has changed our national conversation about economic fairness and justice cannot be overstated.

When the President echoes your dominant themes, and when a national investigation into big banks headed by the New York Attorney General is launched because of those articulated themes, one thing is clear: Occupy Wall Street is winning.

And it's only winter.

Come spring, expect Occupy Wall Street to blossom and expand dramatically, for while the movement may be winning the public discourse debate, there is so much more at stake.

We are just at the beginning.

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