Make is that also critical to dealing with these set of enduring challenges is the continued economic and technological leadership of the United States, which as former secretary gates and others have said, is National Security imperative for us. Now i would like to talk a little bit about the relationship between intelligence and National Security. We always say its the first line of defense. This time going forward, we really do mean it. The benefits that it gives us is it informs our National Security policy. If youre the president and top advisers and trying to make sense of this wide array of challenges, intelligence is the first thing you need to have to understand the world in which youre dealing with. Then for our operators and war fighters, our intelligence capabilities enable what we call Intelligence Driven precision operation. When directed by the president , the Intelligence Community provides additional options in between diplomacy and the overt use of military force. The
One of the things i would like to leave you with is the tremendous change thats taken place in our intelligence capabilities over the past decade, and even greater change that we foresee looking forward. One of the aspects of this is the revolutionary impact Precision Targeting has had across our intelligence enterprise, whether its in Counterterrorism Operations, whether its in cyber operations, or classic human intelligence and espionage. To illustrate this, i would like to tell a joke that my former boss, secretary bob gates used to love to tell about the old way we did business. Many, many years ago, supposedly, an Intelligence Officer was working in a foreign capital at a diplomatic cocktail party, trolling the Diplomatic Service as we often do, looking for hard targets and unfortunately this officer had a little too much to drink. So his mission attention wandered a little bit towards more amorous pursuits. Across the room, he spotted what he saw was a vision of loveliness in a f
Around to make a lot of changes to a lot of things in the ways in which the United Kingdom conducts its business. One of the many questions that arises, and there are lots about currency, foreign investment, defense, nato commitments, and all sorts of things that are out rights, aut pension share of the sovereign debt of ,he on and United Kingdom mr. Salmon, who is the first minister of scotland, said he expects there to be a seamless transition. That is not what leaders of the European Union has said. Others have said that if scotland leaves the United Kingdom and wants to join the European Union, it will have to take its place in the queue and apply like every other candidate country and would require unanimous consent of everyone of the 28 members of the eu. I would be surprised if all that got done seamlessly in 18 months, but we will see. It is clear that there are some with bits applying for membership in the European Union. It is one of a number quite complex questions that woul
Vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote . If not, the ayes are 52, the nays are 42. , and the nomination is confirmed. The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. The clerk cloture motion, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of sharon y. Bowen of new york to be a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission signed by 17 senators. The presiding officer by unanimous consent the mandatory quorum call has been waived. The question is is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of sharon y. Bowen of new york to be commissioner of the futures commodity Trading Commission shall be brought to a close. The yeas and nays are mandatory. The clerk will call the roll. Vote vote the presiding officer are there any senators wishing to vote or wishing to c