For the next ten days, the Houston Police Department Traffic Enforcement Division will be on the lookout for impaired drivers. They gave it the catchy slogan “Don’t Get ‘Popped’ During 4th of July Festivities,” because nothing reminds you that Johnny Law is watching you like a snappy refrain about drunken/high driving. Starting today and running through July 7, the initiative will stake out “various areas throughout the city.” Yeah, we wish we had more specifics. Not so we can go drunk joy riding, but so, you know…to inform.
FYI, Harris County, Texas allows for a no-refusal policy in DWI-related traffic stops, it means if you’re buzzed, you’re got. If you’re not familiar with that policy, it basically means that even if you refuse a breath test, cops can still draw your blood. Houston Press has the full story.

Comprehensive immigration reform dominated the candidate forum at South Mountain Community College last week — and no wonder, considering that voters in in Arizona’s Seventh Congressional District are overwhelmingly Democratic Latinos. And here’s a shocker: All of the candidates at the forum — a politician, a preacher, an attorney and a teacher — support immigration reform that includes halting deportations and a path to citizenship.
But when it comes to legalizing pot in Arizona, only Mary Rose Wilcox, former Maricopa County Supervisor, voices her opposition to doing so.

The American SWAT team has become a domestic extension of the United States military, conducting seek and kill thrill missions that have cost an increasing number of the average citizen in this country both life and limb. Not only are these raucous foot soldiers of the War on Drugs gaining sustutnance from their gnawing wrath against dark skin poverty, but their cutthroat infiltrations are without regard for public safety and ultimately, making enemies of a population they are paid to serve.
This is the consensus of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose recent study, entitled “War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing,” paints a vile portrait of the Land of the Free by revealing how state and local law enforcement agencies are bribed by Uncle Sam to make drug busts in exchange for federal funding – an incentive program that has armed local yokel police departments to the teeth. The ACLU finds this military-grade arsenal is in the hands of lunatics who have accomplished very little but a violent onslaught of no-knock savagery that has invoked fear and panic throughout entire communities.

After spending the last legislative session pushing medical marijuana and a cell phone tracking bill, Sen. Brandon Petersen (R-Andover) is now looking toward a totally different cause: Bitcoin, the semi-controversial digital currency.
This week, Petersen announced that he’s founding a new nonprofit, yesbitcoin, with a mission to communicate to people and organizations how Bitcoin works and the ideas and infrastructure behind it. Petersen will serve as the executive director of the organization, but his role as senator will stay separate. Minneapolis City Pages has more.