'Syrian forces shell Homs, breaking ceasefire'

BEIRUT - Syrian forces shelled two central districts in the battered city of Homs throughout the night and into Saturday morning, a resident activist and a human rights group said, the first bombings since a ceasefire took hold on Thursday.

"There was shelling last night in the old part of the city, in Jouret al-Shiyah and al-Qaradis. And I have heard eight shells fall in the past hour," Karm Abu Rabea, a resident activist who lives in an adjacent neighborhood, said on Saturday morning.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that shelling had wounded several people overnight.

On Friday, Syrian forces shot dead five protesters after prayers, activists reported, while the government said an army officer was killed.

Syrians took to the streets across the country in small demonstrations, trusting that the two-day-old truce that is meant to lead to political dialogue would protect them from the army bullets that have frightened off peaceful protesters for months.

Activists said security forces came out in strength in many cities to prevent protesters mounting major rallies against Assad, even though the plan of UN-Arab League envoy Annan says the government should have pulled its troops back.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the anti-Assad Local Coordination Committees said two people were killed as marchers tried to converge on a central square in the city of Hama.

Soldiers also shot one person dead as worshipers left a mosque in Nawa in the southern province of Deraa, where the uprising began in March 2011. Security forces killed a fourth in the town of Salqeen in the northwestern province of Idlib, opposition activists said, and a fifth was killed in Deraya, Damascus province.

However, Syria's state news agency SANA blamed two of the deaths on the opposition, saying an "armed terrorist group" shot dead the man in Salqeen and attributing the death of one Hama protester to a shot fired by a fellow demonstrator.

SANA also said "terrorists" shot an army major dead as he drove to work. Armed groups were seeking to "destroy any effort to find a political solution to the crisis" in Syria, it said.

International community attempts to save Syria truce

At the United Nations, Russia said it was not satisfied with a Western-Arab draft resolution authorizing an advance UN team to monitor the fragile ceasefire which aims to end 13 months of bloodshed during the uprising against Assad, an ally of Moscow.

The council is tentatively scheduled to vote on the draft on Saturday if Russia can be persuaded to support it.

International pressure has grown for Syria to fulfill all its commitments to the former UN chief by withdrawing troops and heavy weapons, permitting humanitarian and media access, releasing prisoners and discussing a political transition.

At the Security Council, a US-drafted resolution called for an initial deployment of up to 30 unarmed UN observers.

Russia's UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters after an inconclusive Security Council meeting on the draft resolution that "we need to cut off all the things which are not really necessary for this particular purpose."

In addition to authorizing UN observers, the draft criticizes Damascus for human rights violations and hints at the possibility of further action by the 15-nation council. The US and European delegations will revise it later on Friday in the hope of securing Russian support, council diplomats said.

Russia and China have vetoed two resolutions condemning Assad's assault on anti-government protesters.

The United Nations estimates that Assad's forces have killed more than 9,000 people since the uprising began. Authorities blame the violence on foreign-backed militants who they say have killed more than 2,500 soldiers and police

Jerusalem Post

Economist Mike Krieger " There Will Be QE"

Central Planning for Dummies: There Will Be QE

For several years now I have been sounding the alarm that if you want to be engaged in the financial markets you need to assume that markets are being managed (rigged) more aggressively than at any moment in any of our lives.  The Bernank and others on Wall Street and the District of Criminals understand that the situation is pretty much hopeless.  Ever since 2008 they have had one strategy.  From a monetary and fiscal standpoint, that strategy has been to pump massive amounts of liquidity into the system while at the same time borrow enormous amounts of money.  The thinking was that this would stabilize the situation, create confidence and thus ultimately a dynamic sustainable recovery.  They certainly bought a few years with this plan but confidence has not returned, nor has there been any sustainable recovery.  What we need to understand at the moment is that The Bernank and all of his fellow Keynesian Central Planning magicians know that they have failed.  This is why he is running around on college campuses presenting his sad and intellectually dishonest presentation of propaganda that even a six year old could refute.  In fact several people have done just that.  Here is one good article on it.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-open-letter-ben-bernanke.  Moreover, Jim Grant recently gave an incredible speech at the belly of the beast itself -The New York Federal Reserve -where he completely undresses the Fed right to their face.  You must read this one.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/must-read-jim-grant-crucifies-fed-explains-why-gold-standard-best-option

So what we need to understand is that we are in one of the most dangerous phases of this crisis at the moment.  The priests of fiat are being attacked from all sides.  People have awoken to the Fed and how criminal and deceitful this organization is and the existential threat it poses to economic freedom and hence human liberty.  The arguments against the Fed are blistering and the only rebuttal the Fed has is to spout the same old nonsense like “we saved the world” or some trite derivative of this fallacy.  The only thing they saved are untalented speculators from their bad bets.  What the Fed has systematically done is literally transfer all of the bad debts and bets from the banks to the taxpayer.  We are living this reality to this day.  This fact is becoming increasingly understood throughout society, hence the emergence of the tea party and then last year’s Occupy Wall Street movement.  So the thing I want my readers to really internalize is that the Fed and indeed TPTB generally are getting slaughtered in the intellectual arena and they know it.  As a result, they feel cornered and will thus act increasingly aggressive to prove they are right and everyone else is wrong. 

As I have said many, many times before, The Bernank needs to create more money and he knows it.  He is irate beyond belief that his academic theories have not worked.  He is furious that he can’t make the housing market come back to life.  He is having a temper tantrum that people actually have the nerve to link printing trillions of dollars to the rise in commodity prices.  He wants to launch QE3 this quarter but he feels like public opinion is against him (he’s right) and Obama is having his own little panic attack about gasoline prices and the election.  So what’s a Central Planner to do?  Well, exactly what they have been doing as of late.  Lie.

  

The release of Tuesday’s Fed minutes was unlike any I have witnessed before.  The Fed minutes are usually interesting to read through and every now and again have some very useful nuggets in them.  That said, I have never seen them used as a way to make a statement and impact markets as was the case with the latest release.  As soon as it came out there was the red Bloomberg headline “FOMC Saw No Need to Ease Anew Unless Growth Slows, Minutes Show.”  After this came out the markets sold off but in particular gold was raided aggressively.  I had noticed the weakness in mining shares in the morning (which is almost always a signal a raid is coming) and I mentioned this to a few friends.  There is no way in a free market I could have foreseen this raid so easily.  The reason I could see it ahead of time is because this was a very well orchestrated attack on an asset TPTB are desperately afraid of.  Gold to Central Bankers is like Sunlight to Vampires. 

What I found most interesting is that several people seemed confused.  I read statements like “ I don’t know why the markets reacted this way, they said nothing new!”  The markets reacted the way they did because that was what the Central Planners wanted.  I mean who “reacted” that way to the minutes?  A few PPT machines? There is no volume in the markets, retail is dumping stocks week after week and prices are being set at the margin by manipulators in a futile attempt to bolster confidence (hasn’t worked in four years so they are doubling down on the strategy of course!)  Despite the nonsense they say about not needing to do QE3 because the economy is better, the exact opposite is true and they know it.  They also know the minute they announce anything gold, silver, oil and other commodities will surge to the stratosphere.  That said, the goal is to try anything they can to get oil and precious metals as depressed as possible ahead of the announcement.  That is what the Fed minutes announcement operation was all about.  While they have knocked precious metals down, oil is proving to be a much harder nut to crack.  This is very interesting because it appears that these clowns have gotten as much mileage as they can out of the “we don’t need more stimulus” lie.  What will they come up with next?  I don’t know but I do know that the Federal Reserve and TPTB understand they are fighting for their lives and their survival.  They will pull out any and every trick in the book before they die.  The more cornered they have become they more aggressively they have acted.  Watching the most powerful people on the planet fight their inevitable demise has been and will continue to be fascinating and frustrating.  They will fight and fight.  They will rig and rig.  They will lie and lie.  Until one day the whole thing will end seemingly overnight.  They will vanish into history, disgraced and remembered for time immemorial as some of the biggest fools in world history.

Dave Janda Interview        

Recently I recorded another radio interview with Dr. Dave Janda out of Michigan.  Dave is one of the most tireless freedom fighters I have ever encountered.  He has been doing it all of his adult life and I am very proud to be in the trenches with him during the most important battle of any of our lives.  You can hear my interview here. http://www.davejanda.com/audio/MichaelKreiger032512.mp3  Please take a listen.

Belligerent Act.Org

A friend of mine recently created this website to help protest the NDAA and get the word out http://belligerentact.org/.  Not only is it a good summary of how TPTB are attempting to put a police state in place ahead of the increased rebellion they know is coming once a critical mass of the citizenry get a handle on just how badly they have been systematically looted by the crony capitalist mafia, but it also allows you to put a “Belligerent Act” banner at the top of your website as a sign of support and means of getting the word out.

Owe The IRS?  Bill Would Suspend Passport Rights For Delinquent Taxpayers  

I want to end with a very short but very telling article regarding the potential loss of travel privledges at the hands of the IRS.  Here are some key quotes:

A bill authored by a Southland lawmaker that could potentially allow the federal government to prevent any Americans who owe back taxes from traveling outside the U.S. is one step closer to becoming law. Senate Bill 1813 was introduced back in November by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Los Angeles) to “reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes."

However, there does not appear to be any specific language requiring a taxpayer to be charged with tax evasion or any other crime in order to have their passport revoked or limited - only that a notice of lien or levy has been filed by the IRS.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/04/04/owe-the-irs-bill-would-suspend-passport-travel-rights-for-delinquent-taxpayers/

Hmmmm, interesting isn’t it.  You don’t need to be charged!  All that needs to happen is a notice filed.  Just like the NDAA allows the government to imprison you without a trial.  Just like the recent executive order Obama signed that allows him to take over the entire economy in any “emergency” whether in peacetime or war.  The bottom line is this.  This sort of legislation doesn’t happen ahead of an economic recovery.  It happens ahead of a collapse.  Welcome to the recovery! 

Peace and wisdom,
 

Mike   

Future Money Trends