Conservationists, hunters, fishermen and outdoorsmen celebrated Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s decision to withdraw his public land sales proposal from the “big beautiful” tax bill Saturday.

Lee, who had originally proposed an amendment to the bill that would have required two U.S. agencies holding public lands to sell between 0.5 and 0.75 percent of the land for housing development, withdrew his proposal Saturday.

Conservationists and outdoor lovers lauded his backtrack.

“Big win for conservation!” the Tennessee Wildlife Federation reacted in a Monday post on X.

“Thank you to everyone who called your Senators in support of our nation’s public lands,” the organization concluded. (Read more from “Hunters, Fishermen And Outdoors Experts Rejoice As Sen. Mike Lee Backs Off Plan To Sell Public Lands” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

For eight years, U.S. foreign assistance was tied to a leftist political agenda rather than American interests, and it’s now up to President Donald Trump to correct that, Sen. Mike Lee said Tuesday.

Lee took particular aim at U.S. support during the Obama administration for the overseas work of nonprofits bankrolled by liberal billionaire George Soros.

“Whatever one’s views about abortion, energy regulation, alternative family structures, they are neither core international priorities of the American people, nor essential to American national security. They are domestic political controversies, pet causes of a sort of privileged, globalist elite,” Lee said in the speech at The Heritage Foundation.

“Yet for eight years under President Obama’s administration, they were the substance of a global reeducation campaign, funded by … American taxpayers,” the Utah Republican said.

Lee made the remarks, in which he specifically criticized the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, ahead of a panel discussion on U.S. foreign assistance at The Heritage Foundation.

“President Trump and his team must change the culture of American diplomacy towards one that prioritizes American interests and respects the sovereignty and self-determination of other peoples,” Lee said.

Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal would cut funding for the State Department and USAID by 28 percent.

The senator noted that Eastern European countries are more socially conservative than Western European countries because of the influence of Catholic and Orthodox churches. He said they also are more economically conservative because of their past suffering under communism.

The citizens of countries such as Macedonia, Poland, and Albania see the U.S. government spending money on progressive political causes as a “well-funded external political activism that undermines legitimate governments and long-held cultural norms of their nations with leftist policies and leftist politicians,” Lee said, adding:

And who can question their concerns, when the State Department and USAID have provided millions of American taxpayer dollars to organizations in Eastern Europe associated with well-known progressive advocates like George Soros and his Open Society Foundations, who make no secrets about the kinds of politics they support?

The mission of USAID, which has a $22.7 billion annual budget, is to fight poverty and promote democracy abroad.

A State Department spokesman told The Daily Signal in a written statement that USAID money is properly accounted for.

“USAID is committed to accountability and transparency and to the oversight of U.S. government funds to ensure they are not subject to waste, fraud, or abuse,” the spokesman said in an email. “USAID regularly conducts rigorous reviews and audits of programs implemented by partner organizations. These reviews are conducted to measure the programs’ effectiveness and efficiency and to ensure their compliance with applicable statutes, regulations, and policies.”

Lee’s chief example was Macedonia:

Macedonia today is embroiled in a governing crisis that has been brought about largely by external interference in domestic issues and political processes. The crisis has deepened the political divide in the country and threatens to inflame ethnic tensions.

Such unrest is like an engraved invitation to an opportunist like [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, who can inflame divisions and actively court populations who feel that they have been betrayed by the United States.

From 2012 through 2016, USAID gave $4.8 million to Foundation Open Society-Macedonia, a division of the Soros-funded nonprofit, “in partnership with four local civil society organizations,” according to the agency’s website.

The conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch has sued the State Department and USAID for detailed information about funding for Foundation Open Society-Macedonia.

Open Society Foundations spokesman Maxim Tucker disputed much of Lee’s comments about the Soros-funded groups in a statement to The Daily Signal. Tucker said in an email:

Senator Lee must know that since 1973, U.S. law prohibits USAID from funding groups that support abortion as a method of family planning–it’s simply false to suggest that the Open Society Foundations or its affiliated organizations use USAID funding to promote abortion rights abroad.

Indeed, we administer only a fraction of USAID funding and that money goes on to local organizations working on local issues–such as health care, infrastructure, education, community activism, and journalism. We do spend nearly a billion dollars of our own money each year funding a wide range of groups that promote human rights, democracy, and good governance.

In central and Eastern Europe, these groups are increasingly attacked or smeared by corrupt and authoritarian governments seeking to deflect legitimate criticism of their leadership.

Lee and five other Republican senators last month wrote Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asking for a review of USAID dollars going to fund political causes, including Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

“The department’s initial response was dismissive of our concerns, and refused to promise any such review,” Lee said during his remarks Tuesday, which may be seen in their entirety here:

“The immediate priority for the Trump administration is to get the right appointees into key positions at the State Department and USAID,” Lee said later, adding:

President Trump, Secretary Tillerson, and other administration officials must also clarify the position of the United States on a number of foreign policy issues, especially in areas where the Obama administration left a damaging impact or caused confusion about U.S. priorities.

USAID doesn’t have a presence in Ireland, for example, according to James Walsh, a former member of Ireland’s senate. Walsh spoke at Heritage’s forum about how the State Department has backed progressive causes in Ireland, including abortion and same-sex marriage.

Walsh said “the most prominent support for so-called progressive causes” has come from U.S.-based nonprofits.

However, Walsh said, the U.S. Embassy in Dublin provided financial help to set up the LGBT group Shout Out. He said that group had “a very prominent role” in Ireland’s 2015 referendum that legalized same-sex marriage.

Walsh added:

The known support from the official U.S. government sources may be relatively modest, but it contributes greatly to an impression which the rhetoric of the Obama administration strongly underlined. And that is that the U.S. government is actively and vigorously promoting these euphemistically called progressive causes around the world and is prepared to interfere in what many people would regard as a matter exclusively for the domain of the people of that particular country.

The State Department did not have an immediate answer for The Daily Signal about whether the embassy financially supported the new lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender group in Ireland. (For more from the author of “Mike Lee Warns Trump About Taxpayer Funding of Soros Groups Overseas” please click HERE)

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The 2016 election cycle has sent a signal “loud and clear” that the federal government needs fixing, a U.S. senator said Tuesday.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, voiced his support for 12-year term limits on members in either body of Congress while speaking at The Heritage Foundation this week.

“I’m distressed any time I see the right to vote being diluted by an argument that rests on the following line of reasoning,” Lee said Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation event to announce Heritage’s new research Institute for Constitutional Government. He said:

Whenever you see a member of Congress come back and tell his or her constituents, ‘Look I know we’re all citizens in a free republic and that means you can vote for whomever you want, but given the amount of seniority and authority that I’ve accrued during my time in this or that body of Congress, you should know that if you don’t vote for me you will lose money and power and influence.’

“It’s attaching a very high price tag to our most fundamental of rights, our right to vote,” Lee said. “The best way I can see to eliminate that argument, to take it out, is to limit members of Congress to 12 years of service in either house.”

Lee said he believes there should be a constitutional amendment for term limits.

A 12-year term limit in either chamber of Congress would allow U.S. senators to serve for two terms and representatives to serve for six terms.

“Congress is the people’s branch,” Lee said.

Congress needs to be responsible and accountable, he said.

“The American people are frustrated with the government that knows no boundaries,” Lee said. He added:

The American people … know that in many respects they are no longer in charge of their own government. That the government that was created to serve them has tried to untether itself from them, moving away from them and becoming a task-master rather than a servant.

Power has been taken away from the people’s elected representatives and “given to unelected, unaccountable government bureaucrats,” Lee said.

“This is a problem because it results in all kinds of lawmaking made by all kinds of government officials who are never subject to elections and therefore have no reason to fear when the people get concerned about new laws,” Lee said.

“Members of Congress have contributed to this problem,” Lee said of giving too much power to bureaucrats.

Along with advocating term limits, Lee spoke at the event about preserving the Constitution.

“In order to avoid criticism and thereby maximize their chances of achieving perpetual re-election, [members of Congress] depart from and are willing to sacrifice constitutional principles that were designed to connect the people with their own government,” Lee said.

“Power has been taken away from the people and moved to Washington,” he added. “Power that was always supposed to be exercised at the state and local level has been federalized.”

The new constitutional institute at Heritage will help “educate members of Congress, their staff, the new administration, and the American people on the importance of our founding institutions to preserving freedom,” a description of the event says.

“The founders tried to forestall creation of a new tyranny by devising an ingenious system, codified in the Constitution, to limit the power of government and preserve individual liberties,” James Wallner, Heritage’s group vice president for research who will head the new institute, said in a statement.

The B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics, the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, and the Center on Public Opinion research centers are part of Heritage’s new Institute for Constitutional Government.

There is “a real need for more high-level civic education on college campuses to the general public, to members of Congress, to their staff,” David Azerrad, director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics, said on Tuesday.

“One of the things I think that all conservative and libertarians, and progressives who are still committed to the Constitution, need to recognize is that the task of rebuilding limited constitutional government is going to take a long, long time,” Azerrad said. (For more from the author of “Sen. Mike Lee Calls for 12-Year Term Limits for Lawmakers” please click HERE)

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