I saw something on another blog about an article from the German newspaper Der Spiegel and Rummy was quoted about something he said to someone that works with Merkel. Seems the Administration is going to do an end run around Congress on the Defense budget. (the site for the link is down for the moment but should be back up soon).

Here tis...
USA: Military service directions soon elevated to law?

Read an interesting snippet in Der Spiegel about German Defense Minister Jung's first visit to US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, where the latter asked Jung when Germany would increase its defense budget to 2% of GDP, which would mean upping it from 24bn to 45bn Euros. Jung replied that there is no need for it. Then it got interesting...
When Jung asked about the anti-torture legislation brought forward by Senator John McCain, Rumsfeld explained: "..dass einschlägige Dienstvorschriften der Armee bald Gesetzesrang erhalten würden. Für Änderungen bleibe aber er selbst zuständig, nicht etwa der Kongress."

In English: ... that concrete military service directions would soon be elevated to the level of law. Any changes would be his responsibility, not that of Congress.

Lovely, isn't it - the castration or simple circumvention of democratic institutions. Sounds rather fascist and dictatorial to me. Hope the Americans get rid of scum like Rumsfeld and his cronies as soon as they legally can. This doesn't bode well for that country, and I am sure you will agree, but as always the masses will keep slumbering until their up for the slaughter.

Found at: http://www.helmar.org/index.php?id=469

I would love to see some TWN reader in the Letterman-world prompt Dave to ask John McCain a question regarding the imperial, non-transparent way Rumsfeld manages his Pentagon empire.

Steve ---- eerrr isn't Rummmy only "following the leader"? so wouldn't a more telling question for Letterman to ask of McCain: ... the imperial way Bush is behaving; acting as if he were the Pope, speaking ex cathedra where his minions are to accept without questioning. AND should they question, rather than be cursed to the fires of hell, the imperial Bush opens up the gates of his ATTACK machine, both in government (Cheney, cabinet secretaries, joint chiefs, etc) and out, e.g. Swift-Boat Veterans and Pat Robinson.

Does Rumsfeld actually speak German or was the English a re-translation to the original laguage?

Not sure if Rumsfeld spoke it in German or English.

Btw, here's the Der Spiegel link:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,391766,00.html

One should never allow the press to see anything. They aren't strategic thinkers, they're myopic and dysentary. A free people can just trust their leaders can't they? Why of course they can. Would America's current crop of political criminals lie? Of course not. That's why America has 'no-bid' contracts for our military. After all, it's only money so what is the big deal? Congress will rubber stamp the Defense budget and we all know that. Herr Rumsfeld is correct to keep his numbers to himself. This is post 9/11 America and let's not ever forget that!

To change the topic sort of...the Cleveland Fed published its latest regional economic report.

Source blog:
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/02/nfp_preview.html

Cleveland Fed site:
ECONOMIC TRENDS
FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CLEVELAND, January 2006
http://www.clevelandfed.org/Research/ET2006/0106/trends.pdf

Yum

more of that Universal Fascism attitude !

"Stop quoting the laws to us. We carry swords." - Pompey

I agree Steve. I thought the whole point of having a civilian secretary of defense was to ensure some semblance of transparency in the military complex.