American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
In Princeton: the John Witherspoon school
In Plainsboro: Got an email from a friend,
Princeton Plasma Physics Lab has opened its cafeteria and locker rooms to the public until 8pm tonight. They are offering heat, hot showers, phone and laptop recharging, wifi, vending machines, microwaves and CNN.
Scudders Mill Rd to Campus Drive to Stellarator Drive (!!!) to the guardhouse where you show id. They have staff to direct people to the cafeteria.
Public Service Electric and Gas crews of 3-4 trucks are working street-by-street. The traffic lights from Princeton to Kingston on Lincoln Highway (Rt. 27) are now working.
Fortunately the electricity at casa de Fausta’s back on.
At the same time that PSE&G is working, several other crews from private tree services are clearing the hundreds of fallen trees, so many roads and local streets are blocked. Downtown, Van der Venter is still closed by the movie theater.
All the public schools remain closed until Monday.
All things considered, we are blessed to have come through with relatively minor damage.
Downtown is the only part of town with electricity; the only traffic lights that work are downtown on Nassau street, from Harrison to Marquand park.
The Sunoco on Nassau street, and the Getty and Gulf onn Rt 1 & Washington Avenue are open, with very long lines.
McCaffrey’s is the only business open at the Princeton Shopping Center. All others, including the pharmacy, are not. The traffic lights in that area don’t work and some of the streets are blocked. I didn’t see any workers.
Many, many fallen trees and downed electrical lines have not been repaired, including on the street where I live. You’re better off staying away from the area.
I urge anyone who’s able to donate or volunteer to the Salvation Army.
Thousands are homeless in NJ. Obama had his photo op with Christie, and headed west.
The reports on New York City are horrible. Bloomberg is going ahead with the Marathon tomorrow, even when Staten Island is in desperate need.
BLOOMBERG DIVERTS FOOD, GENERATORS FROM DEVASTATED STATEN ISLAND TO NYC MARATHON
The NY Post has the photo of the generators,
UPDATE,
Bloomberg cancels marathon; let’s hope the generators are on the way to where they’re most needed.
Easter Sunday was on Sunday, April 8, 2012.
On Easter Sunday this year, aircraft records obtained by TheDC show that Melgen’s plane left Florida the morning of Easter Sunday, stopped at the Teterboro private airport near Menendez’s home in New Jersey, and flew on to the Dominican Republic.
Two days later it returned to the United States, from a private airport near Casa de Campo.
While he was there,
Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.
In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.
You would think that politicians would know by now that they ought to pay hookers.
Sen. Menendez was interviewed by NJ Today Online and was asked about what the consequences should be for the secret service agents who were involved in the sex scandal in Cartegena, Colombia.
(video above cue at 1:54)
He answered, “If the facts are true, they should all be fired. The reality is is that the secret service not only protects the president of the United States, they represent the United States of America. They were on duty. If the facts are true as we are reading in the press, they shouldn’t have a job.”
The sex part is not the big issue,
1) Prostitution is legal in the Dominican Republic. This doesn’t make it right or any less sleazy, but it takes away the most vivid “senator accused of illegal acts” angle. Although I suppose paying only 20 percent of what you promised could get you in legal trouble…
2) Menendez is not married.
3) Most New Jersey residents have much bigger issues on their minds right now, thanks to Hurricane Sandy. In fact, this might be the very best possible time for this story to break for Menendez.
What I want to know if Menendez reports the free vacation(s) and free use of Salomon Melgen’s private jet.
It’s New Jersey Dems, folks.
Classified cable warned consulate couldn’t withstand ‘coordinated attack’
In a three-page cable on Sept 11, the day Stevens and the three other Americans were killed, Stevens wrote about “growing problems with security” in Benghazi and “growing frustration” with the security forces and Libyan police. The ambassador saw both as “too weak to keep the country secure.”
Fox News asked the State Department to respond to a series of questions about the Aug. 16 cable, including who was specifically charged with reviewing it and whether action was taken by Washington or Tripoli. Fox News also asked, given the specific warnings and the detailed intelligence laid out in the cable, whether the State Department considered extra measures for the consulate in light of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – and if no action was taken, who made that call.
The State Department press office declined to answer specific questions, citing the classified nature of the cable.
Ty Woods’s father speaks,
