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So apparently you can use a hook to print stuff on top of every Claude Code response

While I was playing with hooks, Claude Code happened to add a status line to show some data. Since there is no build-in statusLine setting in the VS Code extension, it found its own workaround. UserPromptSubmit hooks can return additionalContext via hookSpecificOutput. Claude renders whatever you put in there as GitHub-flavored markdown at the top of every response. You can even add a splash screen. The gist is a ~20-line bash script. It grabs git branch --show-current and date, formats a one-liner, outputs JSON: json {"hookSpecificOutput":{"hookEventName":"UserPromptSubmit","additionalContext":"..."}} Note: additionalContext gets injected as a system-level reminder, same layer as CLAUDE.md. It doesn't just print text, it can influence responses. Print a different timezone and Claude will assume you're in that region. Be careful not to inject misleading context. Gist: https://gist.github.com/jbmoutout/ff16d9445c600b8663b1954df27b7d03 submitted by /u/jbmoutout [link] [comments]

Trump’s $1.5 Trillion “Dream Military”

 Image by Diego González. What constitutes national security and how is it best achieved? Does massive military spending really make a country more secure, and what perils to democracy and liberty are posed by vast military establishments? Questions like those are rarely addressed in honest ways these days in America. Instead, the Trump administration favors preparations for war and more war, fueled by potentially enormous increases in military spending that are dishonestly framed as “[recapitalizations](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/08/air-force-hegseth-ken-wilsbach-nuclear-weapons/)” of America’s security and safety. Such framing makes Pete Hegseth, America’s self-styled “secretary of war,” seem almost refreshing in his embrace of a [warrior ethos](https://www.businessinsider.com/hegseths-warrior-ethos-speech-now-mandatory-viewing-for-military-2025-10). Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is another “warrior” who [cheers for conflict](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-suggests-trump-help-iran-protesters-military-cyber-psychological-attacks-against-regime), whether with Venezuela, Iran, or even — yes! — Russia. Such [macho men](https://bracingviews.com/2016/08/03/too-many-troops-have-died-in-the-name-of-big-boy-pants-2/) revel in what they believe is this country’s divine mission to dominate the world. Tragically, at the moment, unapologetic warmongers like Hegseth and Graham are winning the political and cultural battle here in America. Of course, U.S. warmongering is anything but new, as is a belief in global dominance through high military spending. Way back in 1983, as a college student, I worked on a project that critiqued President Ronald Reagan’s “defense” buildup and his embrace of pie-in-the-sky concepts like the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as “Star Wars.” Never did I imagine that, more than 40 years later, another Republican president would again come to embrace SDI (freshly rebranded as “[Golden Dome](https://jacobin.com/2025/11/trump-golden-dome-nuclear-defense)”) and ever-more massive military spending, especially since the Soviet Union, America’s superpower rival in Reagan’s time, ceased to exist 35 years ago. Amazingly, Trump even wants to bring back naval battleships, as Reagan briefly did (though he didn’t have the temerity to call for a new class of ships to be named after himself). It’ll be a “[golden fleet](https://breakingdefense.com/2026/01/first-trump-class-battleship-could-cost-over-20-billion-cbo/),” says Trump. What gives? For much of my life, I’ve tried to answer that very question. Soon after retiring from the U.S. Air Force, I started writing for *TomDispatch*, penning my first article there in 2007, asking Americans to [save the military](https://tomdispatch.com/astore-on-a-military-bemedaled-bothered-and-beleaguered/) from itself and especially from its “surge” illusions in the Iraq War. Tom Engelhardt and I, as well as Andrew Bacevich, Michael Klare, and [Bill Hartung](https://tomdispatch.com/venezuela-the-revival-of-regime-change/), among others, have spilled much ink (symbolically speaking in this online era) at *TomDispatch* urging that America’s military-industrial complex be reined in and reformed. Trump’s recent advocacy of a “[dream military](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-proposes-massive-increase-in-2027-defense-spending-to-1-5-trillion-to-build-dream-military)” with a proposed budget of $1.5 trillion in 2027 (half a trillion dollars larger than the present Pentagon budget) was backed by places like the [editorial board of the *Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/14/trump-defense-spending-trillion/), which just shows how frustratingly ineffectual our efforts have been. How discouraging, and again, what gives? Sometimes (probably too often), I seek sanctuary from the hell we’re living through in glib phrases that mask my despair. So, I’ll write something like: *America isn’t a shining city on a hill, it’s a bristling fortress in a* [*valley of death*](https://bracingviews.substack.com/p/tis-the-season-for-war); or, *At the Pentagon, nothing succeeds like failure*, a reference to [eight failed audits](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-eighth-audit-targets-2028-pass-pentagon-says-2025-12-19/) in a row (part of a [30-year pattern](https://www.stephensemler.com/p/house-boosts-military-budget-as-pentagon) of financial finagling) that accompanied disastrous wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Such phrases, no matter how clever I thought they were, made absolutely no impression when it came to slowing the growth of militarism in America. In essence, I’ve been bringing the online equivalent of a fountain pen to a gun fight, which has proved to be anything but a recipe for success. In America, nothing — and I