Details Leaked About Port Authority Toll and Fare Hikes

The MTA has already announced its intention to raise fares and tolls on its bridges and subways and buses.

Now, the Port Authority is proposing to unleash its own two-tier hikes on tolls and PATH fares.

A $4 toll increase for E-ZPass users could go into effect as soon as September on the three major Hudson River crossings – the George Washington Bridge and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels – as well as three other bridges between New Jersey and Staten Island, the Bayonne and Goethals Bridges and the Outerbridge Crossing.

The proposal, the first increase since 2008 and only the third since 2001, would raise peak-hour E-ZPass tolls on those crossings to $12 a ride, up from $8. The individuals familiar with the plans asked to remain anonymous because the proposal was not yet intended to be made public.

The biggest increase by far would be felt by drivers who pay in cash: cash tolls on those crossings would be raised by $7, to $15 a trip. (By comparison, a cash toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge currently costs $13.) About 25 percent of drivers on the Port Authority crossings currently pay in cash.

A single fare on the PATH train, the diminutive commuter subway system that connects parts of Manhattan to New Jersey, would be raised by $1, to $2.75 a ride.

And the price of a 30-day unlimited pass for the PATH system would be raised by 65 percent, to $89 from $54 a month.

The tolls would be raised by another $2 in 2014. No increase in PATH fares would occur at that time.

These hikes will be felt hardest by those living on Staten Island, who have no way to travel by car without getting hit with tolls - you can leave Staten Island without paying a toll, but you'd get hit with a $13 to $15 toll for coming back.

Fare hikes will be a further drag on suggesting that people get out of cars to use mass transit.

I'm among those who would be hit by the fare hike - $89 from $54 a month. That's $35 a month or $420 per year (a not inconsiderable amount). Many people use PATH to commute between Newark, Jersey City, and Hoboken, so they'd be hit by the bi-state agency's plans. Combining the fare hikes with the cost for NJ Transit, and some commuters may decide that it is cheaper and less of a hassle to drive into Manhattan than use mass transit.

I understand that the Port Authority needs to close its budget due to cost overruns on various Ground Zero components, but some of those problems were self-inflicted. It refused to engage in serious cost-cutting to make sure that the PATH transit hub was built within budget. It's also facing higher energy costs to operate PATH, but the system has gone from having one of the oldest fleets to having one of the newest after its purchase of hundreds of new railcars. There are savings to be had by retiring the old cars as well.

At the same time, the Port Authority should start to see income coming in from Ground Zero as the Freedom Tower nears completion along with Tower 4 and the transit hub. It recently completed a deal with Westfield for the retail component, leading to more revenues. Those revenues can't come fast enough.

It's expected that the first phase of the increases would raise $720 million annually. The second phase would add another $290 million annually.

At the same time, the Port Authority's expenses would begin to decline as construction wraps up at Ground Zero and it can focus on other area projects that are on its to-do list including a Bayonne Bridge lift/replacement, a replacement span for the Goethals Bridge, and maintenance on its bridges, tunnels, and airports.

If this deal is approved by the Port Authority Board, Gov. Christie and Gov. Cuomo each have 10 days to veto the plan.

If You Thought the FAA Tax Debacle Was Bad, Wait For Forthcoming The Gas Tax Mess

If you thought that the FAA tax funding mess was bad (and it was resolved today with Congress finally extending the tax that funds FAA operations for another couple of weeks), wait for the mess that will ensue with the coming expiration of the federal gas tax.

The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents a gallon expires at the end of September. In order to keep the gas tax, lawmakers would need to vote to extend the highway funding bill, which is what the gas tax is tied to.

There are no official efforts to scrap the tax yet but as first noted in the journal Politco, momentum appears to be moving in that direction.

A bill was recently introduced by Senate Republicans that would allow states to opt out of the federal highway program. The highway program uses $32 billion each year collected by the gas tax, plus a handful of smaller fees and some borrowing to distribute some $50 billion a year to the states for road construction, maintenance and mass transit projects.

That represents about 28% of all road and transit spending nationwide, with the rest coming from states or towns in the form of tolls, registration and user fees, state gas taxes or their general funds.

Some people will question why a federal tax needs to be imposed and then redistributed to the states for work on highway projects.

For starters, we're talking about an interstate highway system and mass transit projects (many of which are also interstate in nature). Transportation is by its nature generally interstate commerce (federally designated Interstate highways, federal routes, etc.). Shifting the burden back to the states means that some of those critical routes will not get sufficient funding to maintain and/or improve roads, bridges, or mass transit operations.

Is the current system cumbersome? Yes. Does it shift money away from states that need such funds to those that don't? Possibly (there's a funding formula that always seems to shortchange states that have built up significant infrastructure and need to maintain it).

Yet, there are some interests that are looking to have the gas tax raised - and they're not the usual suspects. GM and the US Chamber of Commerce want to see the gas tax raised by $1 per gallon, which would go to infrastructure improvements.

With the current economic situation, that would be a no-go. Even in good economic times, an increase of $1 per gallon would be untenable and impossible because gas prices remain significantly above what they were just a few years ago (and would put New Jersey at above $4.65 per gallon - it's currently about $3.65 in Northern NJ). That would not only be a significant drag on the economy, but it would be even more detrimental to lower income taxpayers and businesses that are already hard hit by high energy costs.

The practical costs of not extending the tax would be similar to the problems with the FAA stalemate - a cessation of vital infrastructure projects and a slowdown in improvements that are vital to keeping transportation flowing around the country.

Syrian Protesters Continue To Be Slaughtered By Assad's Regime

Bashar Assad's crackdown continues without end, and the butcher's bill is growing by the day. More protesters have been murdered by the regime, but the protesters continue standing their ground despite coming under attack by the Syrian military.

Meanwhile, Syrian state TV broadcast new images from inside Hama, a city that has become a focal point of the uprising against Assad's regime.

The report showed streets strewn with rubble and wrecked buildings, according to BBC News, which published excerpts.

The Syrian broadcaster claimed that troops had put down an armed rebellion in the city, the BBC reported.

The Syrian TV report showed images of streets blocked by makeshift barricades set up by protesters. A tank was seen removing a large cement barrier as well as a bus that had its windshield shattered.

The report also showed a yellow taxi with a dead man in the driver's seat and bloodstains on the door. A picture carried by state-run news agency SANA showed empty streets with debris and damaged cars.

SANA said the Syrian army was restoring "security and stability" to Hama after it was "taken over by terrorists."

'With you until death'
Hama has been under military siege for six days as Assad tries to crush a growing uprising that has so far claimed the lives of at least 1,700 civilians since March.

Residents of Hama said they feared casualty figures there since military assault began on Sunday were higher than the 135 estimated killed.

It goes without saying that SANA would tout the Assad line and that facts are hard to come by when it comes to what SANA is reporting.

Assad is running SANA stories as propaganda to control the narrative coming out of places like Hama. He wants to portray peaceful protesters as saboteurs and insurgents, rather than civilians calling for freedom and demonstrating against the regime's ongoing brutality.

Assad has tried to combat the image of a slaughter by releasing videos claiming to show Syrians taking up arms against the military and firing on crowds. That's at odds with Syrian activists' reporting that Assad's goons have gone undercover and fired on crowds of protesters. Other groups have claimed that they've remained peaceful and/or that if Syrians had taken up arms against the military, the military casualties would have gone much higher than whatever purported losses have been incurred.

What's lost on Assad's attempts at propaganda is that while many of the protests started out complaining about the economic and political situation, they've morphed into protests about the brutal crackdown itself (the slaughter of people in Hama, at funeral protests, etc.) so that the regime's actions in response to protests are as much a focus as the economic and political conditions.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reports that more than 2,000 Syrians have been killed in Assad's crackdown against protesters and there's no sign of this letting up.

UPDATE:
The NYT reports that Syria is now broadcasting images of Hama after it has been pacified, and it shows a city devastated by artillery and gunfire.

Syria’s state media broadcast stark images of the destruction in the besieged city of Hama for the first time on Friday, showing burnt buildings, makeshift barricades and deserted streets strewn with rubble, in footage that appeared to designed to show that government forces had put down a rebellion in the city.

A photo made available by Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), made from television, shows the rubble of alleged fighting between security forces and armed groups at a street in the city of Hama, Syria, on Friday.
Related

The images were unmistakably Hama, Syria’s fourth-largest city and a focal point of the five-month-old uprising that has left President Bashar al-Assad’s leadership isolated and weakened. They suggested the military had retaken control of a city that, for two months, had wrested itself from under government and enjoyed a measure of freedom unprecedented in four decades of authoritarian rule by the Assad family.

The reports by Syrian television and Sana, the official news agency, portrayed the army as Hama’s savior. The news appeared aimed at reinforcing the leadership’s message to internal opponents that they are regarded as armed insurrectionist gangs inspired by hostile foreign powers and will be dealt with accordingly. But the television footage of the wreckage in Hama also implicitly acknowledged that the violence there had been far more serious than Mr. Assad’s regime has until now been willing to publicly admit.

The regime's propaganda is also fast becoming out of touch with reality.

Residents who managed to make contact with outsiders claimed that more than 200 tanks and armored vehicles were in the city and blocking access to mosques. The military was using a divide and conquer strategy to prevent protesters from congregating into larger groups.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 144

Curbed New York was able to get a sneak peak at the WTC Memorial and construction at the September 11th Museum that is being built adjacent and underneath the memorial. Many of the images mirror those mockups presented by the designers.

There are also photos showing the Calatrava-designed PATH hub coming together, with steel ribs being assembled next to the museum/memorial site.

Work is once again progressing throughout the entire Ground Zero site now that the labor disputes have been resolved for now (the concrete union is back at work and negotiating with developers to agree on a new deal to replace one that expired at the beginning of July). That includes the construction of a creeper crane that will work up the side of 4WTC similar to the way that the third tower crane operates at 1WTC (Freedom Tower).

Until this week, the third tower crane at 4WTC was attached to the building from the base. In the past 24 hours, the crane was attached and is now cantilevered from the side of the building by massive beams that hold it to the tower. I figure that it will move materials around the site in the same fashion as the third tower crane on the Freedom Tower as well (moving concrete to floors as necessary).

I'll have photos of the crane later today.

UPDATE:
More photos from inside Ground Zero, including near the top of the Freedom Tower.

Congress Reaches Interim Deal on FAA Funding

Congress has completely screwed up with fight over extending the authorization of taxes that fund FAA operations. They refused to extend the tax authorization, meaning the agency was losing $25 million a day (more than $250 million since the last authorization ran out).

The fight was two-fold. On the one hand, Democrats were pushing a change to union election rules, while the GOP was pushing for the elimination of a rural airport service rule.

The impasse left thousands of FAA workers without paychecks, and put infrastructure projects on hold while the agency scrambled to keep inspections and air safety programs in operation.

So, it's good to know that a deal was brokered and will be passed tomorrow extending matters; it's a clean bill - no changes on either the rural program or the union rules.

The Killing Fields of Hama

The United Nations finally put out a statement against Syria's Bashar Assad. Lebanon disassociated itself from the statement, which isn't all that surprising given Syria's ongoing meddling in its neighbor for decades and the ongoing presence of Hizbullah in Lebanon's government.



Bashar Assad couldn't care what the United Nations says. He's going to do things his way and that means that Syrians are going to continue dying so that Assad can remain in power.

Assad continues to unleash his military against the city of Hama; blocking protesters from congregating in the main square with tanks and using his military to attack people without provocation. The army is firing artillery and tanks and gunfire at areas within the city and has tried to cut off communications between the city and the rest of the world.

Thousands of civilians were fleeing the city, a bastion of protest surrounded by a ring of steel of troops with tanks and heavy weapons.

Electricity and communications have been cut off and as many as 130 people have been killed in a four-day military assault since Assad sent troops into the city on Sunday, activists say.

Reacting to the intensifying assaults on Hama and other Syrian districts, the U.N. Security Council condemned the use of force against civilians -- its first substantive response to nearly five months of unrest in Syria.

In Hama, residents said tanks had advanced into the main Orontes Square, the site of some of the biggest protests against Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000. Snipers spread onto rooftops and into a nearby citadel.

An activist who managed to leave the city told Reuters that 40 people were killed by heavy machinegun fire and shelling by tanks in al-Hader district on Wednesday and early on Thursday.

The activist, who gave his name as Thaer, said five more people from the Fakhri and Assa'ad families, including two children, were killed as they were trying to leave Hama by car on the al-Dhahirya highway.

The Assad regime is more than content to murder anyone who offers the slightest resistance to his regime's power and authority.

That's despite his repeated claims that he is reforming the government and that he's restraining his military forces to deal only with saboteurs or insurgents.

Fact is he's butchering people left and right and Hama is again taking the brunt. Expect Bashar to make Hama an example to the rest of the country of what happens when you stand up to the regime; he's repeating his father's own crackdown against Hama in 1982, where upwards of 10-25,000 people were murdered when Hafez razed the city with artillery fire and explosives. It was only after the city was razed that he allowed media and other Syrians access to the city - the lesson to be learned from that sorry crimes against humanity is that you don't mess with the regime.

Bashar's grasping at the same strategy, and with the same predictable results as the opposition groups and protesters have no way to defend themselves against tanks and artillery.

UPDATE:
The NYT reports that more than 100 people have been killed in Hama in just the past 24 hours. That's a sharp escalation over the prior death tolls.

Labor Action Ends; Concrete Workers Resume Work At Ground Zero and NYC Projects

Work at Ground Zero and other high profile projects around the city are underway once again as a work action by the concrete union has ended after a arbitrator ruled that the union violated Project Labor Agreements and both the union and developers agreed to continue negotiating through August 16 and operating under the terms of the contract that expired on July 1.

The deal restarts work stalled at the Freedom Tower and World Trade Center transit hub after the Cement and Concrete Workers District Council walked off the job Monday in a dispute over wages and the use of nonunion labor.

The union agreed to return to work this morning under the conditions of a contract that expired June 30 and to extend contract talks until Aug. 16, the sources said.

Industry analysts had feared if the strike continued it could bring work to a halt at the Trade Center and result in the layoff of more than 1,000 workers.

The strike did not affect the 9/11 Memorial, which is on target to open on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The 2,700-member union also walked off several other high-profile construction projects on Monday, but they returned to work yesterday after an independent arbitrator ruled they were violating no-strike provisions in their labor agreements.

Syrian Military Moves To Crush Opposition In Hama

History doesn't just repeat itself. It stutters. So it should come as no surprise that Bashar al Assad is following in his father's footsteps in ordering his security forces to bombard and open fire on civilians inside the city of Hama.

Hama was razed nearly 30 years ago by Hafez Assad in order to crush an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, his son is moving in that same direction, this time against peaceful protesters seeking political and social reforms.

The city was under nearly continuous gunfire since the early hours of the morning, said the Syrian activists, who reported many casualties. They said that residents tried to defend the city by setting up barricades, but that they stood little chance against the military’s armored vehicles and tanks.

“The army is now stationed in Assi Square,” read a post on the Syrian Revolution Facebook page. “The heroic youths of Hama are confronting them and banning them from entering neighborhoods.”

The accounts could not be independently confirmed because Syria has not allowed media to enter the country to report.

Water, electricity and communication lines including Internet services have been cut in Hama and its surrounding villages and towns, according to online posts on social networking sites, and there were reports of many casualties.

Shaam, an online video channel that is sympathetic to protesters, posted a video dated Aug. 3 that showed at least one tank attacking a neighborhood that the narrator said was Hayy al-Hader in Hama; heavy plumes of smoke could be seen rising in the sky.

Assad's crackdown is stirring passions once again throughout the Middle East, but regimes are largely silent - many of whom have not been shy about using force to quell protests against their own ongoing brutal regimes.

Thus far, there's been only words of condemnation and the ongoing imposition or strengthening of sanctions from the UN, EU, US, and various countries. There's been no talk of imposing a no-fly zone or other protective measures to prevent the wholesale slaughter of Syrians at the hands of their despotic leader.

One of the things Assad has done is limit his use of airpower to go after the opposition; it was one of the things that brought NATO in to thwart Libya's Khadafi from attacking the opposition/rebel groups there. Assad is sticking to ground assaults and artillery bombardments to eliminate his opposition.

UPDATE:
Tom Friedman, who coined the term Hama rules, has issued another editorial today, in which he believes that the residents of Syria have declared their own Hama rules to counter the brutality emanating from Assad's regime.

But, this time, the Syrian people are answering with their own Hama Rules, which are quite remarkable. They say: “We know that every time we walk out the door to protest, you will gun us down, without mercy. But we are not afraid anymore, and we will not be powerless anymore. Now, you leaders will be afraid of us. Those are our Hama Rules.”

This is the struggle today across the Arab world — the new Hama Rules versus the old Hama Rules — “I will make you afraid” versus “We are not afraid anymore.”

Good for the people. It is hard to exaggerate how much these Arab regimes wasted the lives of an entire Arab generation, with their foolish wars with Israel and each other and their fraudulent ideologies that masked their naked power grabs and predatory behavior. Nothing good was possible with these leaders. The big question today, though, is this: Is progress possible without them?

That is, once these regimes are shucked off, can the different Arab communities come together as citizens and write social contracts for how to live together without iron-fisted dictators — can they write a positive set of Hama Rules based not on anyone fearing anyone else, but rather on mutual respect, protection of minority and women’s rights and consensual government?

That's the billion dollar question, and thus far the answer is decidedly mixed. Egypt's new era of governance is off to a shaky start even as Mubarak is in the docket (on a hospital cot). Tunisia is muddling by, Yemen remains racked by conflict, and the Saudis and Bahrainis appear to have bought off the opposition buying them some time. Payoffs aren't a substitute for real change.

Social change is coming, and these regimes are resisting that change and it's a test of wills to see which side will prevail.

UPDATE:
The UN Security Council has issued a statement condemning Assad's bloody suppression of protests.

After more than three months of deadlock and silence on the escalating violence in Syria, the council adopted a presidential statement Wednesday afternoon condemning President Bashar Assad's crackdown on anti-government protesters.

The trigger for the council to start negotiations on a text was the intense military assault launched by they Syrian government over the weekend that sent troops and tanks into the besieged city of Hama.

Presidential statements require approval from all 15 council members. Lebanon, a neighbor and close ally of Syria, didn't block adoption of the statement, but it invoked a procedure last used 35 years ago and dissociated itself from the text.

The White House also hardened its stance against Assad on Wednesday, saying the United States viewed him as the cause of instability in the country.

Work Stoppage Threatens Construction Projects Throughout NYC, Including Ground Zero

The ongoing labor dispute between concrete union workers and developers has meant that work at Ground Zero is slowly grinding to a halt; on the day that the Freedom Tower officially became the tallest building in Lower Manhattan, carpenters walked out in solidarity with the concrete union workers.

Carpenters are refusing to work at a World Trade Center project and other sites in solidarity with cement laborers who have staged a work stoppage as they negotiate a new contract.

More than two-dozen carpenters have joined hundreds of cement workers in a job action at One World Trade Center that began Monday. The cement worker stoppage has slowed construction there and on the World Trade Center's new transit hub, both being built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

I understand that developers feel that they're being squeezed on profits for construction projects and that the level of new construction isn't where anyone wants it to be, but they're spiting themselves to go after the unions seeking serious cuts in salaries for these folks. Depending on who you ask, the unions are being asked to cut salaries by 20%.

But at the same time, several of the job actions have occurred at sites where the unions promised no walkouts or union actions to disrupt construction. Those job actions will mean that the court actions pending against them will not go well for the unions.

Moreover, it affects the bottom lines on several key projects around the city, especially at Ground Zero. The Port Authority and Silverstein Properties can ill afford more delays and more costs resulting from work actions.

Groups that are pushing for the elimination of Project Labor Agreements (which were signed by the parties involved and ostensibly prevent strikes and work actions) are using the ongoing disputes to further their own agenda that they should free developers from having to work with the unionized trades.

NYC Concrete Union Workers Walk Out Hampers Ground Zero Jobs

Ground Zero is alive with all kinds of construction trades and work proceeds on the signature Freedom Tower (1WTC), 4WTC, and the WTC memorial, museum, and PATH transit hub.

A work stoppage would put a crimp into the construction schedules throughout the site. Yet, that's exactly what may happen since concrete workers have been without a contract deal since July 1.

The Concrete Workers District Council, whose members have been without a contract since July 1, declined to comment. But some of the workers who stood or sat in a large group around a plaza agreed to discuss their concerns.

"We were willing to take a freeze but we are not going to take a 20 percent pay cut," said concrete worker Lorenzo Mineo. He said he realized people around the country have a connection to the building formerly known as the Freedom Tower and they would want the work to go on. But "we're here in the elements risking our lives and building this building and they don't want to pay their workers."

The workers say they are the lowest paid of the trades. They make $37.80 an hour and while a job like this involves some overtime, many don't.

The Port Authority and the September 11th Memorial organizers say that the memorial will still be able to open to the public on schedule, but the work stoppage is going to affect the construction schedules throughout the site, particularly the towers and the transit hub. Work can't proceed on pouring the core for the Freedom Tower, which means that the steel can't rise much beyond its current height more than 800 feet above street level. The same goes for the construction at 4WTC.

Delays will not only throw off the expected completion dates, but will unnecessarily add to the costs of completing the various projects. The work stoppage threatens to stop construction jobs throughout the City, affecting up to 10,000 construction workers.

Talks are scheduled for this afternoon to try and resolve the contract situation.

Talks between Laborers' Locals 6a, 18a and 20 of the Cement and Concrete Workers of New York and the Cement League, an industry association, have been extended several times past deadlines. There's been progress on most issues, but management's demand for a 20% wage reduction on residential and hotel projects has been a sticking point, an industry source said.

Workers were not striking at the World Trade Center Memorial, which is scheduled to be completed in time for the upcoming tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. But they did walk off their jobs at the new Weill Cornell Medical Center research building on East 69th Street, the industry source said, even though that project is covered by a labor agreement that includes a no-strike clause. An arbitration hearing on that walkout could come as soon as Wednesday.

“We don't believe they have any standing to strike PLA sites,” said Louis Coletti, referring to the agreements the industry reached with unions to help jumpstart construction in the face of the downturn. “There's a very specific no-strike provision in them.”

No Fiscal Reponsibility In FAA Tax Showdown

There's no fiscal responsibility to be seen in the showdown over FAA programs that has resulted in the expiration of a tax that funds FAA operations other than critical security, air safety, and traffic control functions. The tax, which adds $10-15 per ticket, isn't being collected and that's costing the FAA $125 million a week.

The financial picture makes no sense if you're a fiscal conservative and want to see the agency properly funded (which I do).

Lawmakers risk losing more than $1 billion in revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes in a quarrel between Senate Democrats and House Republicans who are demanding a $16.5 million cut in rural air service subsidies.The shutdown is less than two weeks old and already the government has lost more than $250 million in revenue because airlines’ authority to collect ticket taxes has expired. The entire annual budget of the rural air services program is about $200 million.

“I’m a fiscal conservative,” Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, told the Senate on Monday. “I’m trying to make the cuts that are necessary, trying to do the things that are right, but ... that just doesn’t add up.”

The feds are losing $125 million a week in revenues because the GOP wants to eliminate the rural air program and opposes changes to the union election rules. With a recess looming, they could be looking at $1.2 billion in lost revenues by the time they get around to a vote.

So, it means that the FAA capital program is on hold. This increases the costs of those projects already underway due to idle construction sites and lengthening construction times add costs.

For example, this is what the tax conflict is doing to New Mexico's airports:


There's no fiscal responsibility in this stance.

This is the GOP holding its collective face until it turns blue in the face to get its way. It's a temper tantrum.

Oh, and some of the airlines (Delta) are having a chance of heart - and will begin refunding the tax that it had been collecting even though it was no longer authorized.

Gunfire Erupts Across Israel-Lebanon Border; And Here Come the Kassams

It would appear that a Lebanese soldier opened fire on an Israeli patrol operating inside Israel near the border and the Israeli forces returned fire. No Israelis were injured, but one Lebanese soldier was apparently wounded. Lebanese media outlets (and Hizbullah) claim that the Israeli patrol had crossed into Lebanon.

Five years after the Second Lebanon War broke out, Lebanese soldiers and IDF troops exchanged gunfire along the border earlier Monday.

IDF troops were operating along the border near the Hatzbani River when a Lebanese soldier opened fire at them. Israel returned fire at the Lebanese soldier. No IDF soldiers were injured in the incident. Lebanese media reported that one Lebanese soldier was injured from gunfire.

The IDF reported the incident to the UNIFIL force stationed in Lebanon along the border, stating that Israel was not interested in an escalation of violence.

The army added that they believed the incident was contained and it did not appear that a larger operation would follow.

Lebanese news website Naharnet reported that the LAF opened fire when IDF soldiers crossed over to the Lebanese side of the border. The IDF emphasized that they were operating on the Israeli side of the border.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that the soldiers "behaved like they were supposed to. They are determined to defend themselves and the border."

Hizbullah issued a statement condemning Israel and attempted to spin this as Israeli provocation, even though it was the Lebanese soldier who opened fire on the Israelis. The terror group also admitted that they spurned millions of dollars to disarm - they rather like holding on to their weapons stockpile to carry on their war against Israel at the time and place of their choosing.

Indeed, UNIFIL issued a statement finding that Israel didn't cross the border and that the Lebanese opened fire without provocation. That's kind of tough to spin away. When UNIFIL take's Israel's side, you know that it was incontrovertible that Israel was within its rights to return fire.

Hopefully this can remain an isolated incident, and not part of some plan by Hizbullah or Assad to take pressure off the Syrians by manufacturing a conflict with Israel to divert media attention from the horrendous crackdown in Syria.

A similar border skirmish occurred nearly a year ago to a day; in that incident, one Israeli soldier was killed and several others wounded.

Meanwhile, a kassam landed near Ashkelon after being fired from Gaza. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack.

A Debt Limit Deal In the Works

I know that everyone's holding their breath over a handshake agreement on raising the debt ceiling and proposing spending cuts.

It should come as no surprise that the CBO has scored the latest proposal close to the previously announced Reid and Boehner plans.

Once again, it's heavily backloaded with cuts. It gets a staggered raise in the debt limit in exchange for $917 billion in cuts that are delineated over 10 years and possible additional cuts that may get superimposed. It seems to mirror the Reid deal in dollar value but like the Boehner plan, doesn't count the military as part of the reductions.

The agreed-upon plan would see $21 billion cut in 2012, $42 billion in 2013, and rise to $156 billion cut in 2021 to total out $917 billion in cuts over a 10 year period. Most of that is once again backloaded in the final years of the deal. There's another $1.2 trillion that might get added to that amount, but that isn't broken out in the deal because it's based on what a panel of Congress members will decide. That too will likely be backloaded in a similar fashion.

Once again, the CBO has to assume that the AMT doesn't get adjusted and that the Obama-extended Bush tax cuts are also allowed to expire (because that's the assumptions that the CBO must take in to account when figuring out revenues and spending on these bills - it must assume that the law will not be changed from as it in effect upon passage of the bill under consideration).

Raising the ceiling was never really in doubt beyond all the outrageous hyper hyperbole - and the two conferences would get something through, even if it was an interim measure. That's why I didn't really get worked up over the looming deadline, and I'm not particularly surprised that the deal is so heavily backloaded. When those spending cuts never materialize down the road, the country will be in as bad or worse fiscal shape - especially if the expiration of the Bush tax cuts once again gets put off and/or the economy doesn't turn around and we see significant economic growth.

The Hama Rules In Action

Despite protestations from Bashar Assad's regime that they are engaging in all manner of reforms and that they're dealing only with saboteurs and foreign elements that are riling up an otherwise satisfied populace, his military continues the brutalization of the Syrian people.

And once again, the city of Hama comes under the gun. Dozens of people were brutally killed for standing up and protesting against the regime. Some estimates put the tally at more than 100, with the majority occurring in Hama. Welcome to the Hama Rules, Version 2.0.

The violence and brutality has finally gotten Russia's notice after weeks of ongoing violence; they're calling on Assad to curtail the violence.

Rights activists said 80 civilians were killed in Sunday's tank-backed assault in Hama , scene of a 1982 massacre. It was one of the bloodiest days of a five-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Tanks shelled a northeastern district of Hama on Monday, killing at least four civilians, two residents said.

"Moscow is seriously concerned by information about numerous casualties," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "The use of force against civilians and representatives of state structures is unacceptable and must cease."

A U.S. official gave a blunt assessment.

"The authorities think that somehow they can prolong their existence by engaging in full armed warfare on their own citizens," U.S. Press Attache J.J. Harder told Reuters.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined a growing international outcry over the violence.

"Chancellor Merkel condemns in the strongest of terms the Syrian government's action against its own civilian population," government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said.

The EU is extending sanctions, but that will have little effect on Assad, who continues to receive economic and political support from the Iranians.

Despite the growing consensus that Assad has to stop the killings, there isn't consensus to act along the lines of the NATO mission in Libya.

I'm not sure why people think that things will calm down during Ramadan or that autocratic, despotic, or desperate leaders will curtail their crackdowns against protesters. Protesters in Syria have vowed large daily protests all through Ramadan, meaning that the likelihood of an escalated body count has gone up exponentially.



Rep. Denis Kucinich could not be reached for comment. Again.

UPDATE:
Syrian forces have again launched attacks against Hama, and more casualties are being reported.

The shelling resumed on Monday in the early hours of the morning as people were returning home from mosques where they had performed dawn prayers, according to residents and protesters. At least three people were killed, according to activists.

Obada Arwany, an activist reached by telephone, said that tanks had entered two neighborhoods, Al-Qousour and Al-Hamidiya, and bombed residential buildings there. One man died in his sleep when his house was bombed and another was killed by a sniper’s bullet as he was getting in his car.

“The city is like a ghost town,” Mr. Arwany said. “We were not expecting this at all. Hama is getting massacred.”

One protester was also killed in Deir al-Zour in northwestern Syria, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that helps organize and document protests.

The simultaneous raids on several cities on Sunday came a day before the holy month of Ramadan began, a time in which Syrian activists have vowed to escalate their uprising with nightly protests. The scale of the assault and the mounting death toll underlined the government’s intention to crush the uprising by force, despite international condemnation and its own tentative and mostly illusory reforms ostensibly aimed at placating protesters’ demands.