{"id":44065,"date":"2011-09-19T02:49:32","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T23:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=44065"},"modified":"2014-01-06T15:22:09","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T13:22:09","slug":"air-force-general-blows-whistle-on-obama-but-media-deaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/09\/19\/air-force-general-blows-whistle-on-obama-but-media-deaf\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force General blows whistle on Obama, but media deaf"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\"\"<\/dt>\n

General Shelton told lawmakers that he was pressured to be less than honest by the White House when he gives testimony before Congress. Credits: DoD File Photo<\/h3>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Jim Kouri,\u00a0Law Enforcement Examiner<\/span><\/h3>\n

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
“If an Air Force\u00a0general blows the whistle on the Obama White House,\u00a0does anyone in the media hear the corruption?”<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A United States Air Force general is blowing the whistle on another alleged White House scandal, but\u00a0few in the news media\u00a0seem to be listening.<\/strong><\/div>\n
According to General William Shelton, the commanding officer\u00a0of\u00a0U.S. Air Force’s space command, he was told to\u00a0alter his testimony before the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Strategic Forces regarding an Obama White House attempt to award a defense contract to the Lightsquared firm.<\/div>\n
Lightsquared is a\u00a0high-tech company\u00a0doing business in\u00a0Virginia that’s owned\u00a0by billionaire Philip Falcone, an Obama friend and campaign contributor.<\/strong><\/div>\n

\n<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n
According to the\u00a0National Legal and Policy Center, Phil Falcone had\u00a0visited the White House and made large\u00a0cash contributions\u00a0to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.<\/strong> Soon after, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted his\u00a0LightSquared a highly unusual waiver that allows the company to build out a national 4G wireless network on the cheap.<\/div>\n
Republican lawmakers\u00a0say that after Falcon’s visit,\u00a0the Obama\u00a0White House allegedly\u00a0tried to push through a Lightsquared’s proposed wireless network\u00a0regardless of the\u00a0objections emanating from\u00a0military commanders who believed\u00a0the project could disrupt\u00a0key U.S.\u00a0satellite systems.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

At a hearing on\u00a0Thursday,\u00a0lawmakers on\u00a0strategic forces subcommittee, especially\u00a0the Republican chairman, Michael Turner, requested that the House Oversight Committee investigate if Falcone’s company\u00a0garnered any type of\u00a0special treatment from the White House or from Obama appointees.<\/p>\n

The hearing came after a report\u00a0by a blogger on a news and commentary\u00a0web site alleged that\u00a0the Obama\u00a0White House pressed General Shelton to downplay his concerns about the proposed Lightsquared system.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0National Legal and Policy Center, Phil Falcone had\u00a0visited the White House and made large\u00a0cash contributions\u00a0to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Soon after, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted his\u00a0LightSquared a highly unusual waiver that allows the company to build out a national 4G wireless network on the cheap.<\/div>\n
“Under extremely unusual circumstances, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently granted a company called LightSquared the right to use wireless spectrum to build out a national 4G wireless network. LightSquared will get the spectrum for a song, while its competitors have to spend billions,” according to NLPC’s Ken Boehm.<\/div>\n

President Obama’s underlings\u00a0deny any\u00a0wrongdoing, and officials at\u00a0Lightsquared\u00a0denied the\u00a0charges that\u00a0it is\u00a0receiving preferential treatment from President Obama or his staff.<\/p>\n

Republican staff members\u00a0on the subcommittee say that\u00a0the decorated\u00a0General Shelton\u00a0told\u00a0the lawmakers\u00a0that Obama administration officials\u00a0urged\u00a0the general\u00a0to describe Lightsquared’s system favorably during his congressional\u00a0testimony.<\/p>\n

During the\u00a0hearing, General Shelton\u00a0told committee members that\u00a0the wireless broadband network manufactured\u00a0by Lightsquared would\u00a0have a negative impact on the current\u00a0Global Positioning System (GPS) relied on by both\u00a0the U.S.\u00a0military and\u00a0private sector users of the\u00a0GPS.<\/p>\n

General Shelton told the committee members:\u00a0Tests with Defense Department experts, civilian agencies and others “indicate the LightSquared terrestrial network operating in the originally proposed manner poses significant challenges for almost all GPS users.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The general\u00a0insisted through his spokesperson on\u00a0Friday that\u00a0he had not “watered down his testimony due to alleged White House pressure.”<\/p>\n

According to a source familiar with the Lightsquared\u00a0probe, many officers at the Pentagon are highly suspicious of the President, the White House staff and even Obama’s appointees at the Defense Department.<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0occurrence being probed is that the allegation that Lightsquared\u00a0at first\u00a0offered to\u00a0sell satellite phones on its network,\u00a0however the Federal Communications Commission allegedly\u00a0issued a\u00a0special waiver\u00a0to the firm thus allowing sell terrestrial-based wireless service to other\u00a0companies.<\/p>\n

Department of Defense officials. such as General Shelton, in the past\u00a0have raised concerns about interference with GPS users, and the FCC would then\u00a0promise to disallow\u00a0a firm to begin operating their network until after intense\u00a0testing is carried out to ensure there is no disruption to satellite navigation.<\/p>\n

The head of the FCC declined to appear before the committee on Thursday, which the chairman, Turner, called an “affront” to the panel.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Falcone and Lightsquared executives are taking the offensive by giving Obama-friendly journalists at Politico exclusive interviews.<\/p>\n

LightSquared CEO. Sanjiv Ahuja, and its billionaire backer, Phil Falcone, denied all allegations that the wireless company used its political pull with the Obama administration to secure approval of its business plans with the Defense Department.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just very disappointing that people are not seeing the facts here, and [that] this has become a real political issue,\u201d Falcone, a senior executive at the hedge fund firm Harbinger Capital, said\u00a0during his Politico interview. \u201cIt\u2019s not a function of being a Democrat or a Republican, it\u2019s about trying to be an innovator. \u2026 It\u2019s very disappointing and frustrating that we are getting stonewalled like this. \u2026 I kinda scratch my head every single day and say I can\u2019t believe this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Falcone and Ahuja denied receiving special treatment from the White House or the FCC in their ongoing quest to become the nation\u2019s first wholesale wireless broadband provider, according to Politico.<\/p>\n

But some observers\u00a0see things differently. Mike Baker, a political strategist and a former military officer, believes that this investigation needs to be taken to wherever or whomever it leads. He’s like to see a special prosecutor appointed.<\/p>\n

“This is a very important national security issue, not some politically-motivated witch hunt like the Valerie Plame-CIA case. But we all know that with the news media protecting this president, the chances of anything being done are slim or none,” he quipped.<\/p>\n

“First of all, we know what motivates politicians and big business. In the middle you have a career officer who is a four-star general. Whom would you believe? What’s in it for General Shelton to make up stories?” Baker asks.<\/p>\n

“Let’s hope General Shelton sticks to his guns and that more Pentagon and Justice Department officials decide enough is enough from this administration,” Baker added.<\/p>\n

www.examiner.com<\/span>,\u00a0September 17, 2011<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

General Shelton told lawmakers that he was pressured to be less than honest by the White House when he gives testimony before Congress. Credits: DoD File Photo Jim Kouri,\u00a0Law Enforcement Examiner “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” “If an Air Force\u00a0general […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":43842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846,845,34],"tags":[145,6992,6994,6995,6993],"class_list":["post-44065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-scitech","category-usa","tag-barack-obama","tag-general-shelton","tag-lightsquared","tag-philip-falcone","tag-white-house-scandal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}