Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Not Farewell, But See You Elsewhere; U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor to be Archived

While my creation of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has been a fruitful venture -- both product-wise and profit-wise -- I believe it is time to shift my energies toward other initiatives.

My reporting here immediately had been noticed by WND.com, and since then I have increasingly devoted greater efforts selling original articles to that organization than writing new ones for the Monitor. Indeed, I would like to draw your attention to my WND author page, where the bulk of my recent and future reporting can and will be found.

The Monitor certainly has proved to be a positive experience in digital, independent reporting, as had been its predecessor site, The Peacock Report (which is archived here).

From its inception three years ago, the Monitor has produced hundreds of research-based articles ahead of the competition, at times beating even major media organizations; indeed, news giant CNN -- specifically White House Correspondent Brianna Keilar via CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer -- blatantly stole information from this site (see "CNN Rips Off U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor Story on Biden's Plush Parisian Jaunt.")

I must have been doing something right, eh?

Likewise, my articles have been linked to by sources such as Drudge Report, which sparked nearly 90,000 page views in several days in response to "Kenya Sees Spike in Obama Administration-Funded Projects."

Cryptome.org likewise drove thousands of visitors here by linking to my numerous articles on matters specific to national security and U.S.-funded foreign operations.

- See more at: /2012/04/kenya-sees-spike-in-obama-administration-funded-projects.html#sthash.pasFPkIc.dpuf

Similary, bestselling author Andrew McCarthy used (and credited) Monitor material in a piece he wrote for National Review online.

There have been many other notable successes and forms of recognition by outside sources, but it's time I get down to business with other creative ventures (besides, I still have to bag about a ton of leaves in my backyard that I did not get to last autumn).

Most importantly, I need to finish writing Play Dead, Roll Over, my book-length memoir-in-progress. For a taste of the creative nonfiction work, check out an excerpt via Gravel: A Literary Journal and Crime Factory #15. If you are interested in these and other literary (and largely non-political) pursuits, follow me on Twitter via @sgpeacock.

While I will continue to make the Monitor publicly accessible, for now -- if not permanently -- I will cease posting new articles here.

Stay in touch. Like I said, I expect to continue contributing to WND, so check out my author page for updates.

For those interested in my political writing and in conservative/libertarian issues in general, please follow me on Twitter via @tradeaidmonitor.

In addition to my various writing pursuits, I am likewise pursuing voice-over, acting, and emcee/ring announcer opportunities. I have started to update my YouTube page for that reason, though admittedly it is a work-in-progress.

Best wishes, and thank you all for your support and interest. -- Steve Peacock

Why Washington Can't Stop its Evil Ways (WND)

My latest from WND -- S.P.

While federal lawmakers increasingly try to address the nation’s fiscal worries, “taxpayers might still not see the relief they deserve” by the time Congress alternately slashes and adds to FY 2015 spending bills, one budget analyst has warned.

 

“Although the House is moving the fiscal needle in the right direction, it is difficult to know where that needle will point once final legislation reaches the president’s desk for a signature,” according to Pete Sepp, National Taxpayers Union executive vice president.

 

Sepp was asked if there is a disconnect between burdened taxpayers seeking relief and the elected officials who claim to be accomplishing that task.

 

For example, the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations has pledged to crack down on waste and corruption in foreign aid programs, but it gave the green light this week to send the multi-billion-dollar global gravy train down a track only slightly narrower than last year’s.

 

As part of the committee’s celebration of its perceived fiscal responsibility, it acknowledged that some of the slashed funds were simply shifted into “higher priority” programs.

 

Read more at WND.com...

 

Obama Spending $140M to Assess Pakistan Aid Program

Tab for taxpayers to pay for 'performance-monitoring support'

While the flow of billions of America taxpayer dollars to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has slowed during President Obama’s second term, his administration nonetheless will put $140 million into a project to figure out how to help “increase stability, democracy, and prosperity for the men and women” of that nation.

Private contractors will reap the windfall of an aid-effectiveness assessment known as the Performance Management Support, or PERFORM, initiative, which simultaneously seeks to determine whether Obama has accomplished anything thus far in Pakistan.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is tasked with conducting the PERFORM endeavor, for which contractors will provide “performance-monitoring support” of existing assistance programs.

The step comports with existing USAID policy stemming from requirements in the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 that the agency determine if government clients are effectively and efficiently carrying out their contractual obligations.

USAID/Pakistan currently maintains in-house staff to monitor the program effectiveness, particularly in high-threat and security restricted areas such as Karachi, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

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According to the project Statement of Work, for the agency employees to satisfy their contractor-oversight responsibilities, additional contractors are needed to obtain “performance monitoring data.” The aim of the five-year, $140 million PERFORM initiative, therefore, is to obtain that data.

USAID then will use the information to identify existing program problems and to devise project improvements and adaptations. It also will leverage the data “to inform new project designs.”

The agency separately is evaluating the effectiveness of “highly specialized management information system and geospatial information system,” or MIS/GIS, services that a contractor is providing to USAID/Pakistan.

The MIS/GIS initiative will help the agency to track more closely 90 active contracts – valued at more than $1.9 billion – that USAID/Pakistan currently manages.

Management Services International received a six-month, non-competitive contract extension to perform the work, raising the contract ceiling from $11.7 million to $23.7 million.

The administration’s FY 2015 budget request for Pakistan aid is $881.8 million – significantly less than the nearly $2.4 billion sought and congressionally appropriated in FY 2011.

Peace and Security operations comprise $399.2 million of the FY 2015 total, with the remainder slated for Economic Development ($276 million); Health ($80 million); Democracy, Human Rights and Government ($76.6 million); and Education and Social Services ($50 million).

Included in the category of Peace and Security operations is State Department training through its Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, or ATA. As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor's Steve Peacock recently discovered, the State Department purchased hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives and thousands of containers of liquid explosives, which it claimed it would use in the training of ATA partner nations such as Pakistan.

It is unclear, however, which assistance category applies to the administration’s production of a Pakistani-themed video depicting national icon Uncle Sam as a bloodthirsty cannibal.

Similarly, an Obama plan to change Pakistan’s culturally embedded mistreatment of women and girls might fall under several budget categories.

Other recently launched USAID/Pakistan endeavors include the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governance Project, a four-year $24 million program that seeks to improve the ability of that provincial government to provide public services to its citizens.

The Commercial Agriculture Project, which likewise is a four-year $24 million program, will help “improve the ability of Pakistan’s agriculture and livestock sectors to meet both international and domestic demand.”

USAID/Pakistan also recently revealed that it will spend about $17 million to perform an “environmental and social impact assessment” of the proposed Diamer Bhasha Dam Project.

The official justification for U.S. assistance to Pakistan focuses on the pursuit of “robust continued security and civilian assistance that contributes to a more secure, stable, tolerant, democratic, and prosperous Pakistan.”

The broader aim is to “make the region safer and also contribute to U.S. security.”

This article originally was published June 8 via WND.com. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to its author, Steve Peacock.

Feds Holds Another Handout Summit

New guide for corporations, foreigners to game U.S. taxpayers

The Obama administration has taken its corporate-welfare road show to Mexico, where American taxpayers funded a three-day conference over the last week, with an aim to simultaneously subsidize U.S. industry while helping Mexico tap into the U.S. Treasury to fund its national infrastructure plan to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

 

Among the highlights of ConnectMEX – the U.S.-Mexico Transport and Telecom Conference – was the U.S. Trade & Development Agency’s unveiling at this Mexico City venue of a “Resource Guide for U.S. Industry on Priority Infrastructure Projects.”

 

Despite the title’s emphasis on the benefits that U.S. industry could glean from the endeavor, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor editor Steve Peacock discovered last year that the agency’s corollary aim is to provide “an overview of the relevant financing options” the Mexican government may pursue.

 

USTDA – an independent White House agency – in its ConnectMEX promotional materials simply tout the guide as a roadmap containing “detailed descriptions of project opportunities” for the U.S. transportation and telecommunications sectors.

 

However, the resource guide not only cost U.S. taxpayers $100,000 to create, but serves as a vehicle for both U.S. businesses and the Mexican government to obtain contracts and grants paid for by the American people.

 

Among potential options for this modernization effort involving hundreds of billions of dollars is financing through governmental institutions such as the U.S. Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC.

 

USTDA in last year’s bid request for the resource guide explicitly directed the contractor to contact Ex-Im Bank, OPIC, and private/commercial institutions to obtain such information on behalf of Mexico, the host nation “Project Sponsor.” The document also specified that the contractor must evaluate this financing data to ensure “which options represent the best value” for Mexico.

 

“USTDA is sponsoring ConnectMEX to help establish stronger transportation and telecommunications connections between Mexico and the United States,” Director Leocadia I. Zak said during the event’s opening remarks. “We are proud to connect industry-leading U.S. experts to Mexico’s plans to enhance its infrastructure in order to improve the daily lives of its people.”

 

The agency last week bragged that it awarded a new grant to a Mexican industry group “to help modernize Mexico’s freight railcar fleet.”

 

The amount of that grant – which USTDA is giving to the Asociación Mexicana de Ferrocarriles, Mexico’s national railroad trade association, is unclear, as USTDA announced the grant without revealing its value.

 

One conference attendee claimed it was a $150 million, though that amount is highly unlikely in the context of past agency grants. An email and separate tweet sent to USTDA was acknowledged, but clarification on the amount was not given by deadline.

 

The railway grant will support the Mexican industry group’s efforts “to modernize its fleet of specialized freight railcars.

 

“The project will recommend specific investments in new systems, services, terminals and railcars to meet the projected growth of freight transportation in the country.”

 

USTDA said it also plans to release “a complete Resource Guide to highlight additional projects in Mexico’s energy, water and environment sectors.”

 

While USTDA arguably is a relatively small agency – its FY 2014 budget request is just under $63 million – it consistently undergoes criticism along with calls for closure. Former Rep. Ron Paul and free-market think tanks such as the Cato Institute regularly denounce it as among the most duplicative and wasteful of all federal entities.

 

USTDA, Ex-Im Bank and OPIC consequently are among the most egregious examples of “corporate welfare waste,” the Cato Institute concluded in a 2005 report. These and similar organizations “should be terminated,” contends the report’s author, Chris Edwards.

 

Totals for previous Ex-Im Bank and OPIC financing of Mexican infrastructure projects were not readily available for this report, but a search of prior USTDA initiatives reveal numerous efforts to arrange U.S. backing of such projects.

 

USTDA under Obama has financed a multitude of other transportation initiatives that simultaneously benefit the Mexican people and U.S. businesses, courtesy U.S. taxpayers.

 

Multiple DMs and feasibility studies for airport modernization and expansion initiatives, as well as for numerous environmental endeavors, have received USTDA funding since Obama first took office.

 

Some of these endeavors precede Obama and took place under the George W. Bush administration.

 

The agency under Bush was equally generous to the Mexican government, which likewise received grants to explore financing options for infrastructure as well as “green” projects.

 

Bush’s USTDA in 2006 paid for a DM whose aim was to help Mexico achieve closer parity with the “strength and competitiveness” of the U.S. and Canada¸ its North America Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, partners.

 

Despite the overall viability of this trading block, USTDA at the time lamented that Mexico “suffered from lost manufacturing jobs to Asia and is searching for methods to regain its competitiveness,” according to the DM for the Mexico Secretariat of Communications & Transportation Multimodal National Plan.

 

“One of Mexico’s solutions to increasing competitiveness is to capitalize on its geographical proximity to the U.S., offering more secure and efficient trade transportation networks with the U.S. and thus Canada,” the agency said in that endeavor.

 

USTDA similarly financed an analysis of Mexico’s planned modernization of Tijuana as a modern transportation center just south of the California border.

 

Those discoveries further affirm what Jerome R. Corsi, WND senior staff reporter, had suggested in his book “The Late, Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada.” about these tri-national transportation and political linkages.

 

Recently USTDA separately awarded a $50,000 grant to KED Group to assess Mexico’s needs in an “intelligent transportation” project in the State of Jalisco.

 

The agency last October awarded a $50,000 contract to the Seneca Group to conduct a DM on behalf of the Mexican Association of Railroads. That endeavor’s purpose was to help USTDA decide whether to help fund additional projects supporting “the development of Mexico’s freight rail system, which is a critical component of Mexico’s economy and trade.”

 

Potential projects were to include assessments of railroad infrastructure “to accommodate the transportation of various oil and gas products.”

 

It remains unclear whether that project is a predecessor activity to the USTDA grant announced this past week at ConnectMEX. Often the agency will conduct a DM before carrying out a more expensive and detailed feasibility study of the same project.

 

USTDA separately agreed to provide a $455,000 grant to the State of Puebla Secretariat of Transportation to conduct a feasibility study of a proposed “intelligent transportation system” project.

 

Puebla authorities reached out to the administration for help because the “demand for public transportation is expected to increase at an even higher rate than its population growth.”

 

U.S. officials agreed that the development of bus rapid-transit systems along six of the Puebla’s key corridors would “provide significant benefits to Puebla’s population in terms of improved convenience and safety, shorter travel times, and reduced environmental impacts.”

 

The Monitor's Peacock had reported on those projects as part of a broader review of Mexico-specific, U.S. funded initiatives. However, in contrast to the USTDA intelligent transportation system and railway endeavors – which must hire U.S. contractors — the U.S. Agency for International Development is prohibiting U.S. contractors from participating in a recent assistance scheme.

 

The ConnectMEX conference was carried out for USTDA by the Business Council for International Understanding, or BCIU, a New York non-profit whose stated objective is to “facilitate dialogue and action between business and government to promote international understanding.”

 

BCIU is led by Chairman Ahmet C. Bozer, a Turkish businessman and president of Coca-Cola International, as well as BCIU President Peter Tichansky, who also serves on a United Nations advisory board “to build a permanent UN memorial to the trans-Atlantic slave tragedy.”

 

A similar version of this article originally was published via WND.com on June 1. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to its author, Steve Peacock.

Kaboom! State Dept. finally gives explosive answer (via WND)

My latest article gets top-of-the-page visibility. See “Kaboom! State Dept. finally gives explosive answer” via WND. -- S.P.

Bureau boss overseeing shipments has Benghazi connections

The State Department bureau tasked with secretly sending to embassies plastic and liquid explosives operates under the guidance of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, whom a congressional panel last year separately found to be largely responsible for security lapses in Benghazi, WND has learned.

A series of WND articles recently exposed the purchase and international transport of many hundreds of pounds of plastic, sheet and linear explosives along with thousands of containers of high-energy liquid explosives.

Weeks after a State official laughed in response to WND’s inquiry, the department belatedly reacted to a follow-up request for information about how, where and by whom the blasting equipment will be used.

Read more at WND.com...

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