Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has announced that he will not be supporting the controversial Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act, which he wrote, after fierce criticism arose from a variety of groups over his revision to the bill allowing federal agencies warrantless access to Americans' e-mail accounts. The revised version of the legislation was antithetical to the original measure, which included a requirement for a search warrant.

State lawmakers in Texas are fighting to reassert their citizens’ Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendment rights. Republican legislators have submitted two bills, one to remove the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and the other to stop the intrusive screening procedures of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Conflict in the Mideast is intensifying between the Israeli government and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist political/military party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas declared ground warfare on Israel after Gaza Islamists had begun firing missiles at Tel Aviv, while Israel has launched several airstrikes against key Gaza sites. Israel is in the process of preparing for ground war, amassing troops outside the Gaza Strip.,

Several public school teachers are facing investigations for posting items on social networking sites that opposed President Obama and his agenda. Parents raised concerns regarding the teachers’ posts prompting the school distracts to launch investigations. Similarly, teens who posted anti-Obama messages on social networking sites are being targeted by a website called Jezebel, which not only reveals the identities of the students who made the posts, but reported the students to their schools.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday that he was unsure whether he would stay on as Attorney General through President Obama’s second term. The announcement was made before law students at the University of Baltimore, reported CBS News.

Just one day after President Obama was reelected to a second term, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 313 points. While some analysts believe the drop was in response to the election results, others assert that it was provoked by fearful anticipation of the impending fiscal cliff that the federal government will be forced to contend with at the end of 2012. The fiscal cliff refers to the terms of the Budget Control Act of 2011 that are scheduled to go into effect in 2013.

Voters in California voted against Proposition 37, the initiative that would have mandated genetically engineered foods be labeled, on Tuesday. The final results on the ballot measure were 53.1 percent opposed to the measure and 46.9 percent in favor.

The battleground state of Pennsylvania is proving to be a potentially volatile region, particularly in Philadelphia. Members of the New Black Panthers are once again patrolling Philadelphia polling places and resorting to voter intimidation similar to what was seen in Philadelphia in 2008. In other areas of Philadelphia, Republican election monitors are being turned away from polling places.

City officials in Baltimore have established public transportation policies that constitutionalists and state legislators say infringe upon the rights of its citizens. According to the Baltimore Sun, Maryland Transit Administration authorities have announced that audio devices are being added to its buses to record private conversations in order to "investigate crimes, accidents and poor customer service.”

Flight is a powerfully redemptive film that highlights the disastrous effects that substance abuse can have on one’s life. Denzel Washington aptly portrays a man who has seemingly hit rock-bottom until things take a dramatic turn for the worse, proving that man’s fall into depravity is a hard and dramatic one without bounds. Flight proves to be an exciting film with masterful direction and action and can possibly be one of this year’s best.