Horizon Cutting-room Links: Friday, 21 February 2025

"Senate Passes Budget Resolution After All-Night ‘Vote-a-Rama’," Wall Street Journal

"The Senate passed Republicans’ budget blueprint aimed at unlocking $342 billion in spending—and the same amount of offsetting cuts—over four years. The blueprint, which Republican senators have cast as a backup to a far broader House GOP plan, cleared the Senate by  52-48 on Friday morning. Only one Republican—Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.)—voted no."

"Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Draw Up Plans for Budget Cuts," New York Times

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior military and Defense Department officials to draw up plans to cut 8 percent from the defense budget over each of the next five years, officials said on Wednesday.

"Mr. Hegseth said in a memo issued on Tuesday that a number of branches within the military and the Pentagon should turn in budget-cutting proposals by next Monday, two officials said. The memo listed some 17 exceptions to the proposed cuts, including military operations at the southern border."

"Hegseth seeks to shift $50 billion in FY26 budget proposal," Defense One

"Funds should be moved from 'so-called climate change and other woke programs' and 'excessive bureaucracy' to Trump-administration priorities, such as securing the border, building an 'Iron Dome' for the United States, and ending DEI programs, acting deputy defense secretary Robert Salesses said in the statement."

"Step Inside Capital One’s New Las Vegas Airport Lounge: Caviar, Craft Cocktails, And Relaxing Views Worth Arriving Early For," View from the Wing

"After visiting the Capital One lounge I headed directly over to the Centurion lounge in the airport where there wasn’t anything I wanted to eat. The food is just elevated in comparison."

"Everything that I tasted was excellent. I’d note that the cream-filled donut at grab and go is probably something you shouldn’t take more than a bite of, but you’ll want more than one."

"Microsoft-DARPA collaboration yields possible quantum chip breakthrough," Defense One

"A new drone swarm piloting program from L3Harris, released today, allows a single operator to control multiple drones across several vehicle types in different domains during government-managed tests ... The data exchange between the drones and the operator is scaled down to roughly the size of an SMS text message. That means the swarm isn’t dependent on a large enterprise cloud somewhere far away, and can operate closer to the battlefield without long communication threads."

"The drones must figure out how to carry out different aspects of the mission with limited instructions and minimal talk. In effect, he said, they 'bid' on different operations or behaviors based on where they are, what they can do, and what they know about the rest of the swarm. That all happens in a way the operator can see, but without him or her having to give lots of specific instructions."