Senator Uses FCC Nomination Process To Question National Wireless Network

K7DAN contributes this excerpt from the intersection of politics, regulation, and high technology: "Sen. Charles Grassley is standing by his threat to place a hold on two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission over concerns about a controversial new wireless network the agency has allowed to move forward. The Iowa Republican this week accused the FCC of refusing to comply with his requests for information on its discussions with Virginia company LightSquared regarding its next-generation national wireless network. Some fear the network would hinder the effectiveness of high-precision GPS systems — used by the military, farmers and others. Grassley also raised questions about the involvement of Harbinger, the hedge fund behind the project and founded by Democratic donor Philip Falcone."

Comments

Re:Without really knowing specifics..

[vlm]

This seems like a reasonable inquiry.... can someone enlighten me as to why it isn't?

Check his election donation records, all available online. As near as I can tell, his owners are the healthcare industry, which would superficially have nothing to do with this. The people who purchased him did so with the idea he would help them rip off the American Medical Consumer not the American Telecom Consumer. Why he would piss off his owners by not doing his job is the unclear question. Its very much like purchasing a slave for a cotton plantation who steadfastly insists on constructing igloos instead of picking cotton. If you cannot tell, I have little respect for competent owned property of lobbyists, but he apparently is not even competent at being a good little slave, so that makes it even worse.

Its possible his bribe records are not up to date online, or not properly categorized, perhaps its a future looking handshake agreement where a mobile phone PAC will donate $500K to him NEXT year. Or a trade agreement with another corporate owned slave where they support each others causes so as not to appear to be too directly of a bribe. Hard to say.