Once-powerful Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez has agreed to step down from his longtime post as his support collapsed this week on the heels of the Staten Island District Attorney's damning report which disclosed the unethical lengths that the legislature's leadership went in trying to hush-up his sexual harassment of staffers.

It is yet another embarrassing turn-of-events in a year that has seen a half-dozen state legislators indicted on a range of corruption charges.

Insisting on his innocence, Lopez said today he would step down at the end of the legislative session, June 20. Lopez claimed he was just pursing a plan to step down at the end of his most recent term in office to run for City Council.

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"I'm trying to gauge not only what's right and what feels comfortable right this second, but I'm also thinking, How will I feel in a year or two years or five years? Is this the time that I should be doing it? And then there's the other side of the coin, which is, am I still the same person who I thought would make a good mayor?"

These were the questions Anthony Weiner asked himself in a New York Times Magazine profile published last month that sparked widespread interest in the former Congressman's future political aspirations. The hints came two years after the sexting scandal that brought down Weiner's congressional career. And, since then, the politician from Queens has played his cards strategically.

His admissions on television interviews have painted him as a man begging to look past the scandal that rocked him and his family a year ago. He reactivated his Twitter. His hypothetical polling in the race has given him good reason to take himself seriously. So who cares about the Clintons? This is a candidate with the potential to change everything.

And, if indications are what we're going on here, that shift might come as soon as next week.

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Wikimedia Commons

A few weeks ago, we wrote a post entitled "Cuomo's Women's Equality Act Brings The A-Word To New York State Politics." The headline basically tells the whole story.

It focused on the brewing controversy evoked by a tiny stipulation in Cuomo's new bill that calls for writing Roe v. Wade protections into state law - an immediate reaction to anti-abortion provisions being enacted in statehouses across the country. It's the only part of a ten-point bill that's aroused widespread opposition, led by Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos of Long Island. Because, duh, it's abortion.

In New York, Republicans' frustration on social issues is only surpassed by the Catholic Church, which holds a firm stance against abortion. So this should be no surprise: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the man who informed his followers in 2009 to totally disregard federal and state abortion laws, is not a fan of the Women's Equality Act.

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Well, we think it's fair to say that reporters at the Associated Press are none too happy with word that the government secured two months of phone records from the world's largest wire service for some murky leak investigation.

"Yeah, there's a bit of a freak out," an AP reporter tells us. "Clearly, I need to know whether it's specific to me in any way. They haven't told us specifically whose phones are on the list."

In an article on the seizures posted by the wire service, their top executive, Gary Pruitt, called it a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

When they found out about it, AP officials dashed off a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the records be returned and copies destroyed. The pages contain information on 20 phone lines with work and home numbers for reporters, incoming and outgoing calls and the length of the calls.

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In January of 2011, President Obama selected New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in his State of the Union address to lead a banking crime busters force. The creation of the team came on behalf of the Democrat's disenfranchised liberal base, a sect frustrated with the lack of criminal consequences for the recession's architects. But, given that Wall Street, the epicenter of the 2008 financial storm, lies in Schneiderman's backyard justified the choice for him as its leader.

Since then, he's been on a serious streak with his legal weaponry; he's brought lawsuits against J.P. Morgan-Chase, he's gone after Credit Suisse for conning investors before the crisis and he's served subpoenas to the private equity firms of Romney lore. And yesterday, he continued that roll with news of Manhattan courts' next target: a lawsuit issued at Bank of America and Wells Fargo for circumventing a National Mortgage Settlement from last year.

It's the first time an Attorney General has brought a lawsuit under the settlement and it looks like it could be the largest action taken thus far by the Wall Street inspector.

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Former assistant district attorney Abe George.

Carrying a condom in New York could lead to your arrest. Why? Because it is legal for law enforcement to cite condom possession as evidence that a person engaged in prostitution. Targeting condoms, however, is an ineffective deterrent to prostitution and threatens public health. The practice also contributes to police discrimination against New York's LGBT community. Thankfully, the city's five district attorneys can end the policy without having to wait for Albany lawmakers to fix the problem. So it's time to act.

Law enforcement is inadvertently discouraging sex workers from using protection without actually keeping them from engaging in prostitution. Multiple studies have found that sex workers are opting not to carry condoms for fear of being prosecuted. In addition to the thousands of formal prostitution prosecutions in New York City every year, the NYPD routinely seizes condoms from suspected sex workers without actually making arrests. These efforts at deterrence are obviously not working: In one recent study, 20 percent of local sex workers reported that they engaged in unprotected sex mere hours after police confiscated their condoms. Every one of those cases represents a potential new infection of a sexually transmitted disease.

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CNN

Two days before the federal government filed charges against Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, New York State Senator Greg Ball jumped on news of the teenager's capture and recommended spicing up traditional due process. On Saturday, the lawmaker suggested that authorities torture Tsarnaev. Yes, torture, illegal under international law.

So, scum bag #2 in custody. Who wouldn't use torture on this punk to save more lives?

— Greg Ball (@ball4ny) April 20, 2013

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Let's say you donate to a campaign. You really like said candidate and believe he or she will do a great job representing you and your interests in government. Eventually, your preferred politician gets elected and you're confident that your donation was well-spent.

And then, a year later, he or she is involved in a corruption scandal and, soon enough, you see your donation dollars in the hands of the candidate's lawyers. Wait, that's not okay, right?

That's the question being asked in Albany this week, as state lawmakers debate whether to include a ban on using campaign money for outrageous legal fees in the campaign finance reform bill coming out of Governor Cuomo's office. In 1989, the State Board of Elections decided that it was totally fine for candidates to spend their electoral cash on defenses in court. But, in the wake of the recent scandal fest, that opinion is quickly being revisited.

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With Rep. Gabrielle Gifford alongside him, President Obama called it a "pretty shameful day for Washington." Nearly five months after the massacre at Sandy Hook, the gun control package making its way through Congress shut down in the Senate yesterday. Democratic politicians were unable to muster the 60 votes necessary to push forward provisions that would require universal background checks for all gun users. It was a defeat for the Obama administration and a heavily paid victory for the NRA.

Enter Bloomberg.

In recent weeks, the mayor of New York City has posited himself as the anti-NRA figure, the head of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns with enough financial firepower to pressure senators into voting for the reform bill. That bill's death proves to be a setback for Hizzoner's group but it doesn't look like the mayor and his colleagues are giving up anytime soon.

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Looks like Christine Quinn has won... on a few levels.

Last Friday, we reported on the paid sick day bill in City Council, where it's been garnering support for a few years now. The legislation sought to mandate employers to give their workers at least five paid sick days if they had at least 20 employees.

And, after a compromise with exemptions for smaller companies, it finally picked up the attention of a much-needed player: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

That was due to mayoral consequences. Quinn didn't want to halt a bill that would please the labor vote. Her rival, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, has been calling her out left and right on her lack of attention towards the bill. But, of course in the end, it's all about Bloomberg: she has used the opportunity to distance herself from an electorally overbearing mayor who threatened to veto the bill this weekend.

And it could work out for her: News sources reported yesterday that it looks as if the speaker has collected enough votes to 1) pass the bill and 2) overturn the veto. Look at this victory as a legislative beginning of Quinn's full-fledged attempt to cast herself as the "middle class" candidate who's not antonymous with 'Hizzoner.'

Oh, and New Yorkers: Enjoy your shiny new paid sick days.

[jsurico15@gmail.com/@JohnSurico]