Hegseth hands the future of warfare to two donors whose companies already hold billion-dollar Pentagon contracts

The Poet Undermining. They undermine a strength and I take it personally; I have begun a letter of solidarity and I should like the good pen back.

Now we come to the part people are afraid of. On Wednesday, at an event in Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth touted the cut to the top brass, stood up AUTOWARCOM, and dubbed a new project on the future of warfare "Project Meridian". Musk and Palmer Luckey, two of Maga's most significant campaign donors as the Guardian has it, were given advisory roles on the Pentagon's defense board, and Newt Gingrich a role as well. The project is led by Emil Michael, a Pentagon official and former Uber executive who, the Guardian has reported, made millions off non-public Musk company AI stock while guiding the department's artificial intelligence efforts.

The Punk Board. There is a board nailed over the damp in our hall and it shapes nothing; my remedy is to take the hall apart.

The Fixer Advisory. There is money in advisory. I shall advise this house on the boiler by Thursday and invoice the kitty for the future.

Le Monde, the paper here, has it as a "testosterone-charged" speech, and its headline has Hegseth touting a "20% cut in top military brass". At home it was written up as deeper cuts to the top brass.

The Hippie Charged. Everything in this house is charged now, the rent, the boiler, the air in the kitchen, and it was always going to end like this.

You will be looking for the part where a man with a billion-dollar military contract is kept off the board that shapes the next war. There is no such part; there are what the Guardian calls "conflict of interest concerns", and the appointments stand. An advisory role does not keep; it is used while the contracts are still warm.

Serves two companies holding billion-dollar military contracts and one project with a name. The bill goes to a department left with a fifth fewer senior officers to argue with it.