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* The following is an opinion column by R Muse *

It’s almost certain that most Americans have heard, or at least comprehend the meaning of, the idiom, or saying, “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” Regardless that the original meaning was when someone gives you a valuable item like a horse, it would be bad form to look in its mouth to inspect its teeth, the meaning is fairly simple to understand: just be grateful that someone was generous enough to freely hand over a valuable item.

Imagine that a wealthy individual walked up and offered to give an American a brand spanking new Mercedes without condition and a wad of cash for upkeep and maintenance. Most Americans would be thrilled. Now imagine a punk-ass Republican trying to prohibit the wealthy individual from transferring ownership of that Mercedes, and the wad of cash, all because that Republican didn’t like the idea of any American owning a Mercedes. That scenario absolutely defies description. One cannot even call the story’s Republican an ingrate because they were attempting to reject a gift intended for someone else.

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Gratitude, like generosity, is a foreign concept for Republicans. Their big thing is taking everything from Americans. Now, House Republicans led by Utah Mormon and greedy Republican Rob Bishop are waging a fierce battle to reject a monumental gift to the American people and obstruct any plan for a national monument or park, simply because it violates the Koch and Mormon law against public land owned by the U.S. government and by extension the American people.

The National Park Service (NPS) is set to receive a donation of 87,500 acres of pristine land in the Maine Woods from a non-profit organization started by the Quimby family (founders of Burt’s Bees) which will be designated as a new national monument and eventually, a new national park. Now, if the idea of handing over, free and clear, nearly 90 thousand acres to the American people is too generous offends greedy Republicans, they must be insane over the Quimby family also giving $40 million dollars to care for, develop, and maintain the national monument and national park.

Republicans have demonstrated that they have no comprehension of what it means for a wealthy American to want to give to, instead of take from, the American people. Instead of celebrating and being grateful about the Quimby family’s overwhelming largesse, they are “looking a gift horse in the mouth and shoving a hand grenade down the poor creature’s gullet.” The Mormon Republicans’ way of shoving a grenade down the gift horse’s gullet is blocking the transfer of the nearly 90-thousand acre gift as a national monument, block its designation as a national monument, and stop all the job creating tourism and commerce that goes along with it. This is all despite overwhelming public support to accept the gift and designate the land as a national monument and park.

Utah Mormon Rob Bishop is chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and was joined by vicious Maine Governor Paul LePage to reject transfer of the 87,500 acre land gift and obstruct its designation as a national monument. Republicans under Koch supervision insist that all public land be handed over to corporate privatization to be mined, logged or drilled for profits, not for the American people’s benefit. If the Quimby family wants to hand over the land to the Koch brothers to mine, log and drill for oil, Mormon Bishop, LePage, and House Republicans would probably name a post office after them. Instead, Maine Governor LePage lashed out at the gift-giving Quimby family like the ingrate Republican he has proven over and over to be.

According to Mormon, Republican and Koch beliefs, the national parks, wilderness areas, national monuments and all public land belongs to corporations. It’s why Bishop butting in to Maine’s business to reject a very substantial gift to the people reveals that he is nothing but a Koch puppet and a typically anti-government Mormon Republican.

Bishop complains that a local Republican, some Maine malcontent, is right that if the land is a designated as national monument, then mining, logging and oil drilling corporations cannot ruin it and environmental laws will protect it from being despoiled and denuded. The land is protected now because it is privately held by the Quimby family non-profit, so there will be no change after the transfer and that is what Republicans cannot comport; they want change that entails corporate control and abolition of environmental protections.

Rep. Bishop’s hatred that the American people enjoy public lands is, or should be, legendary. Bishop is closely aligned with those other Mormons, the Cliven Bundy Republicans, sitting in jail who contend the public by way of the government is forbidden from owning or using public land. Not only does the Utah Mormon go apoplectic over America owning “public” land, he’s made it his raison d’être to eliminate all of America’s public lands including the entirety of the National Parks system, national monuments, national forests, and wildlife refuges and any other publicly-held land turned over to private enterprise to rape and pillage at their pleasure. This is all in spite of overwhelmingly broad bipartisan public support for National, state and regional parks as well as protected wilderness areas and wildlife sanctuaries.

Bishop is also working diligently to eliminate private property owners’ ability to willingly protect their land from corporate encroachment. This Mormon congressman intends to make it virtually impossible for the National Park Service or other U.S. land management agencies to purchase private lands within or next to existing public lands from private owners who want to sell their land. Now, if they would just offer to give it freely to the Koch brothers or the Mormon Church, then Bishop has no issue with what private property owners do, so long as they do what he, his Church and the Koch brothers want.

What Rob Bishop wants more than anything is to eliminate the 100-plus year old Antiquities Act that allows presidents to designate public land as national parks, monuments, wilderness areas or wildlife sanctuaries. The “Act” has been used by no less than 16 presidents going back to Republican Theodore Roosevelt and it is the only reason why America has any national parks or protected areas. Remember, Bishop’s entire agenda is founded on, besides completely eliminating any publicly-held land and transferring it to corporate ownership, abolishing the wildly popular bipartisan Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) which is hailed as “America’s most successful parks program.” Bishop also supports abolishing private property owners’ rights to undermine conservation efforts, and he regularly rejects the will of local inhabitants to put a permanent end to locally-controlled environmental and conservation efforts.

Perhaps some Republicans are so stunned that a wealthy American freely handed over nearly 90-thousand acres and $40 million as a gift to the American people that whatever remaining normal person’s cognitive process completely failed; no sane politician would publicly try to stop the transfer of a monumental gift to the American people. However, the simple fact that a Utah Mormon with no interest whatsoever in what happens in Maine is on a crusade to stop the land transfer and obstruct President Obama from doing what 16 other presidents have done over the past 100-plus years reveals that the Koch brothers and Utah Mormons are really the driving force in trying to steal a gift designated for all Americans.

If anyone needed a reminder that there are no bounds Republicans recognize in their assault on the people, this latest atrocity should disabuse them of any confusion. Republicans are basically bad people on their best day and few people would dispute that contention. But this bad Republican Mormon, Rob Bishop, like the Cliven Bundy gang that took up arms against the government over its right to own land, needs to spend some serious time in slam where thieves belong. He is, effectively, attempting to rob the American people of a gift before it has been officially handed to the people and even though Mormonism is a strange religion, it’s likely that stealing, no matter when, what, or where is strictly forbidden. However, lying is forbidden and yet if it is done for the lord it is perfectly acceptable and holy, meaning robbery for the Kochs may be a religiously acceptable act.

Image: Credo