In This Issue:

Leading the Past Week; Fiscal Cliff; Legislative Branch; Executive Branch; International; and Miscellaneous.

Excerpt from Leading the Past Week -

With Congress out of session and official Washington, DC conducting its business in a more relaxed pace, politics, and speculation continues to dominate everything. For example, on the campaign trail, Republican Nominee Mitt Romney met in Denver, and following Mitt’s commanding performance we saw an immediate impact, not only in polling (towards Romney’s advantage) but also in the stock market, as some health care related stocks fell in anticipation that a Romney win would mean a repeal of “Obamacare”. The President’s poor performance behind the podium, however, was buoyed by strong jobs number released Friday. The economy added 114,000 jobs in September and estimates for previous months were revised upward—yielding an unemployment number of 7.8 percent, the lowest in nearly four years. The election remains tight, and should stay close through this final month. Back in Washington, the post-election chess game that results in committee shakeups and new chairman and ranking members, is also in full swing, though the election casts such a wide shadow over this process that it is also mostly speculation at this point.