Call Buffalo Public Works Commissioner Steven J. Stepniak, Mayor Byron Brown and the Buffalo City Council to demand that they immediately return the property of the Occupy Buffalo protesters before their offices close for the weekend. Their high-handed thuggery on behalf of the NFTA, Governor Cuomo and fat-cat developers is endangering people’s lives.

I’m saving my “What to Look for in 2012″ listicle for tomorrow, but one of the issues that may not make the list, but which is terribly important, is the battle in the states over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. 2011 was the year when this issue finally bubbled up to the surface (pardon the pun) and into the consciousness of the public. The critically acclaimed Gasland came out in 2010, but anti-facking forces benefited this year from some scientific revelations. Independent studies for the first time identified fracking as a cause of methane contamination and water pollution, and late in the year, the EPA agreed in a case in Wyoming.

In addition to the maneuvers aimed at raising taxes on the rich in California, in New York, where the process to raise said taxes isn’t as byzantine, state leaders have agreed in principle on a deal to increase taxes on the wealthy. And this is a reversal from a vow by Andrew Cuomo from earlier in the year to allow increased taxes on the rich to expire.

As I walked down to Zuccotti Park/Liberty Square in the predawn hours of October 14, I could hear “the people’s mic” and the people’s resounding cheers over three blocks away. . . but the biggest cheer came soon after I wedged my way into the park. . . .

It was bad enough that the Feds stopped enforcing the law. Now they want the State Attorney Generals, including Eric Schneiderman of New York, to stop enforcing the law. But only as to banksters. Pot smokers are still fair game.

Reckless Endangerment describes the players that helped create the housing bubble and bust that were at the heart of the financial crisis. Gretchen Morgenson and Josh Rosner focus on how regulators and other officials were complicit by promoting liberalized housing finance as a way to increase homeownership. Their account chronicles how a naïve vision of the American Dream, that of homeownership as the foundation of upward mobility and stable communities, turned into a nightmare in the hands of a growth driven and increasingly predatory mortgage complex.

Obama likes to posit his conception of the world of the possible as the only world available. He has almost never taken a lead on a piece of legislation that he thought would fail, choosing his battles. He has seen the world as it is, and then called that the best world on which we can live.

For the past week, the eyes of the gay rights community have been on Albany, where lawmakers in New York State have been close to finalizing a marriage equality bill. This would make New York the 6th, and easily the largest, state to allow same-sex couples to marry.

New York Republicans like Andrew Cuomo more than New York Democrats – is anyone surprised?

Congratulations, America, your federal budget process is now as efficient as New York State’s!