Free Republic

Washington — The House approved a $95 billion foreign aid package Saturday, in a pivotal moment for House Speaker Mike Johnson as he tries to stave off a right-wing rebellion. The package consists of four bills that were voted on separately and will be combined into one before being sent to the Senate. The first three bills include $60.8 billion to help Ukraine in its war with Russia; $26.4 billion to support Israel, which is fighting Hamas and Iran; and $8.1 billion to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. Humanitarian aid for Gaza, which Democrats said was necessary for their support,...

The foreign ministers of Britain and Poland appealed on Thursday to the U.S. Congress and personally to the House speaker to take the “epoch-making” decision and approve the $60 billion in aid for Ukraine. Britain’s David Cameron and Poland’s Radek Sikorski stressed that approving aid for Ukraine as it fights a war against Russia’s aggression is a matter of U.S. credibility among its allies in NATO and the world. “This is our joint appeal to the U.S. House of Representatives and personally to Speaker Mike Johnson to submit the Ukraine aid package to a vote,” Sikorski told a news conference

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican lawmakers on Wednesday stepped up their scrutiny of environmental groups’ work with foreign countries, requesting that the Center for Biological Diversity turn in a list of documents detailing their work with Japanese officials. It was the third action that Representatives Rob Bishop and Bruce Westerman have taken this month to put a spotlight on foreign governments’ relationship with green groups, who they allege can be used to influence U.S. policy or national security. {snip} Last week, the lawmakers sent a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis asking him to provide information about environmental litigation against...

Germany spends the second most amount of money on lobbying in Washington by foreign governments. Only the United Arab Emirates splashed out more in 2013, according to research by a US foundation. The Sunlight Foundation has launched a tool called Foreign Influence Explorer, which analyzes spending by foreign bodies or their paid representatives reported to the US Department of Justice. The German government came second in the list, spending $12 million on lobbying in 2013. […] A German company was also the most active private foreign firm lobbying last year. Deutsche Telekom spent almost $12 million on lobbying US officials...