The Tangled Web: Obama Approves Loan for Zuccotti Park Owners

October 17, 2011


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RUSH: Angela, San Francisco. Great to have you on the program. Welcome.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. It's a pleasure to speak with you. I just had kind of a comment. I'm looking at this from, I work events for a living and I've worked on several in the United States, and the common denominator that you have to work with the city and county, and have a plan of attack. You have to have permits, you have to work with, you know, sanitation department, make sure you have proper receptacles for trash. If there's even an iota of, you know, the possibility of having traffic issues, I have to work with the department of parking and traffic. I mean they provide barricades but I gotta pay for barricades. I gotta show 'em that I paid for Porta-Johns. I mean, heck, even if there are certain places where if I have a fortune teller at my carnival or whatever I'm setting up, I even have to have a permit for the fortune teller.

RUSH: Really? What kind of permit does a fortune teller need? Not to lie?

CALLER: I have no idea, but I don't know maybe it's the sharp edges on the tarot cards or something with the crystal balls. I absolutely don't know, but everywhere you go, I mean it's practically a 200-page booklet on all the rules and regulations and hoops you have to jump through in order to put any kind of gathering on.

RUSH: How much does all this cost?

CALLER: It varies but it's really expensive.

RUSH: You said you put together events. In San Francisco you're talking about?

CALLER: San Francisco, but I've kind of had the luxury of going all over and putting events on. San Francisco is one of the worst as far as --

RUSH: What kind of events, if I may probe, what kind of events?

CALLER: Oh, it ranges, races like half marathons, lobster festivals, mostly sports, but music shows.

RUSH: Okay. So you're wondering where are all the similar permits that this bunch has to have for New York City and Washington and Seattle, wherever they are.

CALLER: Right. And I've even had events shut down because of, you know, they said, oh, I was missing a permit, a permit wasn't done correctly. I mean I've had the riot police and police show up and completely shut the event down because, for example, like I was over what the fire marshal allowed me to have as far as attendance.

RUSH: Have you ever done an anti-circumcision event in San Francisco?

CALLER: (laughing) No. No. I actually am very selective about what I pick and choose as far as events go. I wouldn't pick that one up but I'm sure somebody's requested it here in San Francisco. I mean anything goes here.

RUSH: Well, let me fill you in on the answer to your question, at least as it relates to the Zuccotti Park in New York. This is from the Business Insider, and this is the real reason why they weren't kicked out last Friday. If you recall, they were supposed to be kicked out just so the park could be cleaned and then they would be allowed back in, but they thought it would be the first step of a permanent evacuation, they refused to go, and everybody involved backed down. Now, here's the thing.

"Coming on the heels of the Solyndra debacle, the Obama administration has just approved a $168.9 million loan guarantee for the Granite Reliable wind farm project owned by Brookfield Asset Management (BAM). Among its many holdings BAM owns Brookfield Renewable Power, which owns the Granite Reliable and it also owns Brookfield Office Properties, whose holdings include the now famous Zuccotti Park. The Department of Energy finalized the loan guarantee less than a week after Occupy Wall Street protesters took to Zuccotti Park."

So it looks like the people at Brookfield Asset Management, in exchange for letting their park be used by the protesters, got a $168 million loan guarantee from the regime. But it doesn't stop there. "The Granite Reliable Power Project under construction in Coos Bay, New Hampshire is the state's largest wind farm and the New Hampshire Union Leader questions why Brookfield would need federal subsidies at all, particularly following the bankruptcy of Solyndra," and why is GE getting subsidies when they don't need the money? "Mayor Bloomberg's announcement Monday that protesters could remain as long as they liked, also raised a few eyebrows and it turns out he has a personal connection to Brookfield as well. The mayor's longtime domestic partner Diana Taylor is on the Board of Directors at Brookfield Properties along with John E. Zuccotti himself."

So you wonder why they don't need permits? They don't need permits because the mayor's compromised, the girlfriend's compromised, Obama's compromised, in the middle of all this is a $170 million loan guarantee to Zuccotti's Granite Reliable wind farm project. And the price for that is letting them use Zuccotti Park. Does that answer your question?

CALLER: Yeah. It does. That's the way the game is played.

RUSH: See, that's the kind of connection you need.

CALLER: (laughing) Yeah.

RUSH: If you had connections like that, you wouldn't need to get permit after permit after permit after permit.

CALLER: I could just have whatever event I want wherever I want it.

RUSH: Well, everybody else would have to go through the permit process for their events like you. This bunch, there aren't any Port-A-Potties, are there? They weren't for a while. The place is a pigsty. Anyway, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's (interruption) No, it's not unbelievable at all. It's totally believable. Everything is fixed. Everything is rigged. Tell me, why does General Motors, with that market cap, have to get $170 million in loan guarantees from the Obama regime for its wind turbines? The game's rigged. The game is totally rigged. And people think big business is in the back pockets of the Republicans. Nothing could be further from the truth. Big business is in the back pocket of whoever happens to run Washington that day, because that's what it takes.

Big business will pay off whoever they have to pay off. Big business doesn't have time for ideologue devotion. Big business has to protect itself. You don't play ball with Obama, what do you think is gonna happen? He's gonna go out and make a speech about you and he's gonna include you in his rant with the Republicans that your company wants people to die. And then you've got a major PR problem, "Oh, my God, the president's saying that we want people, our customers to die, what do we do?" Just like the people at Big Oil have to or Big Pharma or Big Food. The president's wife is out there indicting the food industry for killing people, for crying out loud. Well, the best way to keep that from happening is to give 'em some money and join 'em in a few projects and shut up. Which is what happens.

What an intricate little web we have here. We have the mayor's girlfriend on the board at Brookfield Asset Management, which just happens to own a wind farm project that needs some money. And they just happen to have a park suitably close to Wall Street for a bunch of vermin to show up and protest in. So they get the money, and the protesters and Obama get the use of the park. And the mayor doesn't kick 'em out, and doesn't require any permits or any of that. And the media gets its story that the real Tea Party is on parade here. So that's the little intricate web of deceit that has been woven.

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RUSH: The protest continues at Zuccotti Park, also known as Obamaville, which is increasingly becoming more and more of the country. Well, they called it Hooverville during Herbert Hoover's days, but actually this is more like Obamaville. This is the country in a microcosm. No toilets, just a bunch of people with their hands out begging for stuff, bunch of lazy brats. That's where we're headed.

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