CUOMO VERSUS NRA: NEW YORK GOVERNOR ATTACKS NRA AND SILENT MAJORITY IN BID FOR THIRD TERM AS GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK.

“ ‘It is of the utmost consequence that the people should discuss the character and qualifications of candidates for their suffrages.  The importance to the state and to society of such discussions is so vast, and the advantages derived are so great, that they more than counterbalance the inconvenience of private persons whose conduct may be involved, and occasional injury to the reputations of individuals must yield to the public welfare, although at times such injury may be great.  The  public benefit from publicity is so great, and the chance of injury to private character so small, that such discussion must be privileged.’ ” New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 281; 84 S. Ct. 710, 727; 11 L. Ed. 2d  686, 707 (1964), citing, Coleman v. MacLennan, 78 Kan. 711, 724; 98 P. 281, 286 (Kan. 1908)(Opinion by Judge Burch, Kansas State Supreme Court).

{Parenthetical Note to Our Readers: The Arbalest Quarrel took the original version of this article off the site yesterday in order to do an extensive rewrite. We apologize for any puzzlement this may have caused.}

IS CUOMO USING HIS CAMPAIGN FOR A THIRD TERM AS GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK TO LAUNCH A BID FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN 2020?

Andrew M. Cuomo, the 56^th Governor of New York and present sitting Governor, seeks a third term in Office. But is Cuomo contemplating a run for the U.S. Presidency in 2020, as the Democratic Party nominee? To the casual observer, it certainly appears so, even as he leaves the option open when asked.  That would certainly be in keeping with Cuomo’s character, for Andrew Cuomo is an ambitious man. It is “Andrew M. Cuomo, 46^th President of the United States,” that Cuomo  may very well see in the mirror when he looks at himself. But, if this is indeed Cuomo’s desire–this ultimate prize–the Silent Majority*  cannot allow this to happen. The Silent Majority must not allow this to happen. The Silent Majority must stop Cuomo in his tracks, and that means stopping Andrew Cuomo’s election to a third term as Governor of New York.  But to stop Cuomo, the Silent Majority must first understand Cuomo.

WHO IS ANDREW CUOMO, REALLY?

Andrew Cuomo is a self-complacent, ruthlessly ambitious, smugly self-assured man. He is the last of “The Three Amigos,” all three of whom, under cover of darkness, spawned and machinated to secure enactment of the oppressive and reprehensible New York Safe Act—legislation that undercuts, and in its very conception is designed to undercut, the import and purport of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The New York Safe Act also negatively impacts the personal property clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as language in the Act makes it impossible for one spouse to transfer his or her firearms to the other spouse as well as to other family members.

But, what became of the two close allies of Cuomo—two of the “three Amigos” that we hear so little about today? One of the two Amigos, Sheldon Silver, former Speaker of the New York Assembly, resides in federal prison. The New York Post reports that a federal Court sentenced Silver to 7 years in prison, and  fined Silver $1.75 million dollars, having found Silver guilty of public corruption. In that article, the Post reports that the judge reduced an earlier sentence of 12 years imposed on Silver, apparently as an act of mercy, given Silver’s advanced age.

Ten days after Sheldon Silver, was sentenced, a U.S. District Court, as reported by the Daily News, sentenced Skelos, Speaker of the New York Assembly, to 5 years in prison, for bribery, extortion, and conspiracy, and ordered him to pay $500,000 in fines. Skelos presently remains free on bail, according to The New York Times, while the Court considers the former Speaker’s conviction on the specific charge of graft.

And what of the kingpin, himself, the third Amigo, Andrew M. Cuomo? The Governor of New York has since attempted to distance himself from his two former friends and allies. Cuomo seems to remain unscathed, while his underlings, Silver and Skelos, get hit with criminal indictments and convictions. But perceptions can be deceiving. Public corruption is systematic in, systemic of, and endemic to Cuomo’s Administration, and, in fact, to Andrew Cuomo, himself.

ANDREW CUOMO: A MAN OF THE PEOPLE? HARDLY!

Several years ago, when Cuomo first ran for Governor of New York, The New York Times wrote that Cuomo was a man of the people. But, fast forward several years to this present moment in time, it is clear that Cuomo is nothing of the sort. No doubt Cuomo would claim that, then, as now, he represents the best interests of New York residents, but, truthfully, Cuomo has done nothing to earn the trust, support and confidence of New York residents in the heartland of the State.

In point of fact Cuomo is unaccountable to and dismissive of all concern for the Silent Majority of New York. By extension, Cuomo would be unaccountable to and would be dismissive of all concern for the Silent Majority of citizens of the entire Nation were he to win the Oval Office in 2020.

Cuomo cannot wash the sins of public corruption away, much as he may try. Evidence of Cuomo’s embrace of public corruption is legion. The New York Post’s expose of Andrew Cuomo is telling. The New York Post writes,

“. . . Gov. Cuomo’s political interference with his Moreland Commission panel’s investigation of public corruption pulled the veil from one of the biggest open secrets at the state Capitol: The governor is a liar and almost anything he promises will turn out to be false. 

Cuomo’s betrayal of major pledges is well known: the promise to cut taxes in a meaningful way, encourage job creation without government handouts, reduce local mandates, conduct public work transparently and have science — not politics — determine if fracking can be done safely.

But it wasn’t until it Cuomo violated his No. 1 pledge to rid New York of the “culture of corruption’’ that has dominated Albany for decades that the full extent of his betrayal of the public became clear.

People who have known Cuomo for years, including some who go back to the days he served as the thuggish chief enforcer of his father, then-Gov. Mario Cuomo, say they aren’t surprised Cuomo’s penchant for lying has finally exploded in full public view.

Andrew Cuomo has surrounded himself with unsavory characters. His own disreputable character is longstanding and his ties to unsavory types deeply entrenched. A case in point: Joe Percoco, a former aide to Governor Cuomo who was sentenced for public corruption.

The times union, pointing to charges brought against Percoco in a federal bribery and fraud case, in 2016—which, according to the NY Post, subsequently led to Percoco’s conviction on several charges—said that:

“Joe Percoco, ‘has long been a bruising political enforcer at times feared by those in the Capitol sphere.‘Trained as a lawyer, he had the guts, brains and stick-to-itiveness necessary to attack any project — hard,’ Gov. Andrew Cuomo called his longtime confidant and former aide in his 2014 memoir, ‘All Things Possible.’ Percoco [first] worked for Andrew Cuomo’s father, Mario, during his time as governor, beginning political life at the age of 19, according to Cuomo’s memoir. At Mario Cuomo’s January 2015 funeral, Andrew Cuomo called Percoco ‘my father’s third son, who sometimes I think he loved the most.” 

ANDREW CUOMO IS, DEFINED, FIRST AND FOREMOST, BY HIS OPPOSITION TO THE SECOND AMENDMENT OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, AND HE IS DEFINED, SECOND—WHETHER THROUGH PERSONAL CONVICTION OR SIMPLY THROUGH POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY—WITH THE PROGRESSIVE LEFT OF THIS COUNTRY, AS HE HAS, THROUGH BOTH HIS WORDS, AND ACTIONS, CAST THE FATE OF HIS POLITICAL FUTURE WITH THAT FAR LEFT-WING POLITICAL FACTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

Andrew Cuomo is known as the man who, more than anything else, detests the Second Amendment, and the NRA, and all those Americans, the silent majority who reside both in New York and in the heartland of this Nation. Nothing defines Cuomo more than his utter contempt for, and his virulent, vitriolic, and absolute hatred for the right of the people to keep and bear arms. His signature Legislation, the New York Safe Act, more than anything else, defines what he stands for and what his vision for America consists of. The NY Safe Act is a testament to his virulent, vitriolic, and absolute hatred of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.

Residents of other States may scoff at Cuomo, perceiving him to be little more than a political con artist who, for political reasons, has consciously, calculatedly cast his lot with the most liberal elements of the Democratic Party, who also detest the Second Amendment and who have, of late, insinuated themselves inextricably into the web of the Democratic Party machinery. Centrists within the Democratic Party seem powerless to constrain these insurgent progressive left elements, or otherwise lack the will to do so, and have capitulated to their aims and wishes.

The Democratic Party is the mechanism through which these insurgent progressive elements intend to destroy this Nation; and the centrist liberal elements within the Party, headed by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, have shown, through their clearly abject weakness, a willingness to join these progressive forces by either echoing the sentiments of their sentiments and aims or otherwise standing by placidly, ineffectively, unable or unwilling to control them.  Make no mistake about this. The Progressive Left in this Nation seeks to undermine this Nation’s sovereignty, and to undercut this Nation’s Constitution and Bill of Rights. Ever since Donald Trump’s inauguration, as the 45th President of the United States, the Progressive Left in this Country have been systematically working toward their destructive goals—although more openly than they had wished; for, with the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States, much to their surprise and consternation, they have been forced to show their hand.

To accomplish their reprehensible goal, those who would destroy our Nation and who would destroy our Nation’s history, traditions, and core values have launched an all-out war—a war against the very foundation of our free Republic and of a free People: a war against the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is destruction of the Second Amendment that exists, first and foremost, in their crosshairs. It is the destruction of the Second Amendment they want. It is destruction of the Second Amendment they need.  And it is the destruction of the Second Amendment they intend to bring off, to effectuate their ultimate goal: subordination of the Country as an independent sovereign Nation State; subordination of the Nation’s Constitution and the Nation’s laws to international laws and international tribunals; and the erasing of our history, traditions, and values, and the subversion of the very concept of  ‘citizen,’ paving the way for the infusion of tens of millions of unassimilable illegal aliens into the heart of our Country. To accomplish their despicable end game, Andrew Cuomo is their man.

The destroyers of this Nation, no less so than the silent majority, know that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the very backbone of this Nation. Were the Second Amendment eliminated, the entirety of the Nation’s Bill of Rights, along with the autonomy and sanctity of the American citizen, and, too, the very structure of this Nation’s Government, as laid out in the Articles, as set forth in the Constitution, would topple like a house of cards. The socialists, communists, anarchists, and those that finance their operations in this Country are working tirelessly, unceasingly to see that this happens. The silent majority in this Country, for their part, must see to it that this doesn’t happen.

ANDREW CUOMO ATTACKS THE NRA

Lest there by any doubt, the National Rifle Association (NRA)—as the preeminent defender of the Nation’s singularly critical core, defining precept, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and as preeminent defender of the very bedrock of a free Republic—is the first civil rights organization. It was founded in 1871 ((incidentally, nine years before the founding of the National Association for the deaf (NAD), in 1880, and almost forty years before the founding of the NAACP, in 1909)).

Left-wing progressives, becoming increasingly emboldened and radicalized, and with the backing of the mainstream media, have the audacity to call NRA a terrorist organization. Left-wing progressives seem oblivious to the fact that NRA is the first and certainly the most important civil rights organization in this Country. By calling NRA a terrorist organization, left-wing progressives are implicitly, ludicrously calling millions of NRA members, terrorists, too. And, by calling the NRA a terrorist organization, these left-wing progressives explicitly denigrate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, impugning Americans who choose to exercise their natural right to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment, and making a mockery of the Nation’s Bill of Rights, of which the Second Amendment is a salient, critical part.

The mainstream media does not so much as try to restrain the inane pronouncements of and the dangerous actions of these left-wing progressives elements in society but ignores—indeed, even repudiates—the sacred duty owed to all Americans, under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, namely, to defend the rights and liberties set forth in the Bill of Rights—all ten of them—by seriously investigating and calling out the Un-American activities it observes through the words and actions of these left-wing progressive elements. The mainstream media unconscionably echoes the sentiments of this faction, thereby assisting in and hastening the breakdown of the institutions comprising our society; the destruction of our Constitution and its system of laws; the collapse of our Country as an independent, sovereign Nation State; the extinction of our traditions, our history, our core values and our code of ethics; and the defilement of our citizenry.

Of course, the silent majority of this Country can readily dismiss the vitriol and antics of these left-wing progressives who attack NRA, who attack supporters of NRA, and who seek de facto repeal of the Second Amendment. These left-wing progressives in our society have no credibility. For, the Silent Majority knows what they aim to do. They seek nothing less than to destroy the sovereignty of the United States and to subordinate our Constitution and laws to those of foreign bodies.

It is one thing for individuals and for the Press to attack our Constitution, repugnant to the conscience as that is. It is quite another thing when politicians, themselves, denigrate the Second Amendment and attack NRA. For politicians—the representatives of the people—were elected to represent the citizenry. They have taken an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, which includes the preservation, protection, and defense of the Second Amendment, as a critical, and, arguably, most critical component of the U.S. Constitution.

When these politicians—these representatives of the people, themselves—voice opposition to the sanctity of the right of the people to keep and bear arms and to the premier Civil Rights Organization, NRA, that exists for the sole purpose of defending that right, then, they have betrayed their oath of Office; they have betrayed the Constitution they swore to protect, preserve, and defend; and they have betrayed the American people, the Nation’s citizenry, they claim to represent. At that point, the American people, the silent majority of this Nation, can no longer remain silent; must no longer remain silent. The silent majority has the duty to call these disrupters out for the evil they do.

NRA FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST ANDREW CUOMO

On May 11, 2018 NRA filed a lawsuit against the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS).** In the lawsuit, NRA sets forth: “This case is necessitated by an overt viewpoint-based discrimination campaign against the NRA and the millions of law-abiding gun owners that it represents. Directed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, this campaign involves selective prosecution, backroom exhortations, and public threats with a singular goal – to deprive the NRA and its constituents of their First Amendment right to speak freely about gun-related issues and defend the Second Amendment. The foundation of Defendants’ selective-enforcement and retaliation campaign is a series of threats to financial institutions that DFS, an agency created to ensure the integrity of financial markets after the 2008 credit crisis, will exercise its extensive regulatory power against entities that fail to sever ties with the NRA.”

Last month, NRA filed its Amended Complaint. Cuomo immediately fired back with a motion to dismiss the Amended Complaint, arguing that NRA’s lawsuit is “frivolous.” But, the appellation, ‘frivolous,’ is more aptly applied to Cuomo’s lack of regard for and respect for the Second Amendment. For, in his outrageous attack on NRA, incongruously using the mechanism of a boycott—a singularly bizarre and illegal maneuver by a Governmental entity to utilize—Andrew Cuomo has made clear that, as Governor, he intends to destroy the efficacy of the Second Amendment in New York. This should give all Americans pause. For, as President of the United States, Andrew Cuomo would do much, much more damage to the Second Amendment. He would work toward excising the Second Amendment from the Constitution of the United States, altogether. 

ANDREW CUOMO MUST BE STOPPED!

Cuomo’s malevolent ill will toward NRA is clear. Indeed, he has had the affront to call NRA–as the first and premier Civil Rights organization, defender of a sacred component of our Bill of Rights—an “extremist organization.” And, in a mocking tone,  as reported by the Daily News, denigrating NRA, and by implication, mocking the organization’s members, millions of Americans, the silent majority of our Country, and mocking our Nation’s sacred  Bill of Rights, Cuomo retorts: “If the NRA goes away, I’ll remember the NRA in my thoughts and prayers.”

In making these insulting statements, Andrew Cuomo can no longer be considered a respectable leader of New York, much less of this Nation, in the event he decides to make a run for the Office of U.S. President in 2020. Cuomo has shown an utter lack of restraint and demonstrates a marked deficiency in character. He does not identify with and, obviously, he has no desire to identify with the vast number of Americans, the silent majority, both in New York and in the Nation as a whole, that reveres the great document, the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution that our founders lovingly gave us and spilt their blood for, on our behalf. Cuomo identifies himself with a small, albeit vociferous, faction of society, left-wing progressives, who do not represent the vast majority of the American citizenry, who do not represent, we the silent majority.

Cuomo has through both his words and deeds made himself into an outlier, even an outcast, who, has cast his lot with a small virulently Anti-American segment of the population, left-wing progressives. Cuomo is not the defender of our Nation’s liberty and security that he pretends to be. He is, as with the left-wing progressives he identifies most closely with, a disruptor and destroyer of our Nation’s traditions, values and history. He is openly contemptuous of the salient right of the people of this Nation to keep and bear arms as etched in stone in our sacred Bill of Rights, and therefore disdainful of all those–the silent majority of this Nation–that support NRA and that support the Bill of Rights in its entirety.

Cuomo says he merely seeks to make New York and the rest of the Nation “safe” and will work with other States to make his vision of America a reality as he cannot get Congress on board with is plan for America. Yet Cuomo’s vision for New York and for the rest of the Nation serves not to defend the American people but seeks to undermine our Nation and to dismantle our Constitution. Cuomo resides well beyond the pale of decency and respectability and properly merits the condemnation of the American people.

IN CONCLUSION

Andrew Cuomo has given up all pretense of representing the interests of the people of New York, and he has made abundantly clear, both through his statements and actions, that he has no desire or inclination, whatsoever, of preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States. He should not serve a third term as Governor of New York. That would do a disservice to the citizens who reside in New York. And, Cuomo definitely should not serve as President of the United States, if he harbors any secret inclination to do so. For, were he to do so, that would inevitably prove fatal to the Nation’s Bill of Rights; fatal to the continued existence of a free Republic; and fatal to the continued existence of our Country as an independent sovereign Nation State, neither subordinate to or subservient to nor beholding to any other nation, federation of nations, or transnational authority.

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*The expression, ‘silent majority,’—referring to the vast majority of American citizens throughout the Country whose voice is drowned out by the cacophony of noise incessantly, unceasingly, and obnoxiously generated by the mainstream media and by a vocal minority of extremists around the Country and in the halls of Congress whom the mainstream media represents and with whom the mainstream media is closely identified—is, perhaps, most closely associated with and most likely popularized by President Richard Nixon, after a speech he gave to the Nation in 1969. But, significantly, it was President John F. Kennedy, not Nixon, who earlier coined the expression. The expression appears in President Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Profiles in Courage,”where he wrote: “Some of them may have been representing the actual sentiments of the silent majority of their constituents in opposition to the screams of a vocal minority. . . .” 

**See August 3, 2018 update to the NRA’s lawsuit, as reported in the Daily News, and the August 5, 2018 update to the NRA’s lawsuit, as reported in The New York Times. 

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Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.