Indeed. And yet King Cuomo is still issuing diktats with absolutely no check on his power. Half of them don’t even make sense. This week, he tweeted that wearing a mask is not optional. What does that even mean? That he signed an executive order? Or is his itchy Twitter finger just making up laws on social media? And who is enforcing this? Are the police going to start arresting people for literally showing their faces? Does anyone have any idea?

Meanwhile, this week we learned that pay increases for 80,000 civil servants have once again been deferred by Cuomo. Perhaps that’s necessary amid the lockdown-induced budget crunch. But you know who is scheduled to get a big, fat raise? Unless deferred, Cuomo’s own will jump by $71,000. It’s good to be the king.

Yes, there is a time limit on these emergency powers. They last one year and so would expire of natural causes in six months or so. But can we really take six more months of this? Shouldn’t we, by right, have the government we voted for right now?

Individual legislators might for whatever reason feel compelled to hand over their powers semi-permanently. But here’s the thing: That power doesn’t ultimately belong to the Legislature in our system of government — it belongs to us, the people of New York, a people now crushed under the despotism of a petty tyrant who gives himself raises as tens of thousands of small businesses close forever under his irrational lockdown orders.