The other day I wrote about how David Hogg and other anti-gun activists, as well as a few politicians, were taking a victory lap over Governor Andrew Cuomo’s political abuse leading to financial damage to the NRA.

Bow howdy has that gotten worse.

Andrew Cuomo released a campaign ad in which he came right out and takes credit for his abuse of power in attacking the NRA.

Holy fuck, he sounds like a mob boss not a governor in a Constitutional republic with that.

The New York Daily News catalogs his abuse because they clearly support it.

“You try to bully us in New York, we put our finger in your chest and we push you back, and that’s what we are going to do with the NRA,” Cuomo adds as dramatic music plays in the background.

The powerful gun rights group says it has lost millions due to the state’s push to discourage banks and insurance firms from working with the organization.

The case was triggered by a letter from Maria Vullo, the state’s top financial services regulator, urging banks and insurers to stop doing business with the NRA. That missive was sent out following the Parkland, Fla., mass shooting that left 17 dead and 17 wounded on Feb. 14.

The letter cautioned those intuitions would face “reputational risk” if they continued to be tied to the NRA and gun industry.

The NRA claims the letter has hurt the group financially.

“As a direct result of this coercion, multiple financial institutions have succumbed to defendants’ demands and entered into consent orders with (state regulators) that compel them to terminate longstanding, beneficial business relationships with the NRA, both in New York and elsewhere,” the NRA claims.

The loss of insurance coverage has put the group’s daily operations at risk.

The governor of the State of New York is using the regulatory bodies he has authority over to send this message to any bank or insurance company that does business in New York (so virtually all of them but small local ones).

“That’s a nice company you have there.  It would be a shame if anything happened to it because you did business with the NRA. Capisce?”

The NRA has a First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.  I’m not a lawyer (so if one is reading, correct me if I’m wrong) but it seems to me that using a regulatory agency to “discourage” private businesses from from providing services to a lobbying group because of their message is a clear First Amendment violation.

It also seems to me like tortuous interference, but I do not know if that applies to government in the State of New York, or just private parties.

In general, this is near the epitome political abuse.

For Cuomo to stand there with the weight and power of the government of the State of New York behind him and to act like the victim of bullying responding to a bully is adding insult to injury.

The people who are cheering this on are cheering on a politician using mafioso tactics to silence a group that has every Constitutional right to do and say what they do because the politician doesn’t like the message.

“If you speak against the king, he’ll bankrupt you” is not the way our country works and not the principle on which is was founded.

This must be fought to the very highest courts possible.  Anything less is to allow politicians to destroy freedom of speech by third party means.

This is evil, and Cuomo thinks it’s a feather in his cap.