I wish Bluesky allowed comments long enough to express what I'd like to say, so I will have to just condense it to the observation that here in Texas, the highly visible politicians' stances do not in any way accurately reflect how the general population treats trans people like me.

Cutting Medicaid will increase health care costs overall, because delayed treatment for those without insurance will increase the number of people who show up in expensively critical condition at ERs, and the law *requires* that they be treated.

As a former guy, who spent 65 years undetected among them and seeing their unshielded natures revealed, I understand the type far too well. My default assumption is "all men are assholes unless proven otherwise."

Actually, the "right on red" provision became part of the national traffic laws back in 1975, and states had to explicitly ban the practice to keep it from taking effect within their borders. If they elected to ban it, they risked losing certain bits of Federal funding.

Presumably only from a one-way to another appropriately-directioned one-way...

That's true even in the depths of darkest Texas.

The deadly problem is that too many drivers don't turn their attention back to their direction of travel before starting to accelerate away, and can run over a pedestrian or cyclist in the process.

Knowing what a "ranch" can smell like up close, I concur.

I will note that the population of NYC is adequate to put it well above the bottom of the "Nations by population" list all by itself, so acting like it's a country unto itself at times makes a certain amount of sense.

Having driven there, "right on red" is usually a bad idea because of limited visibility and frequent levels of pedestrian use of crosswalks. Better to make "No" the default in that city.

In LV, the default assumption on The Strip is "You can't get there from here on foot" because only a non-player would try to *walk*.

If I could just get access to meds that might work, perhaps I could get my act together. But I'm over 65, and so I need to jump through additional hoops and then get past the established miswisdom that people my age *never* need ADHD meds.

Many politically-motivated people have been attacking the entire GS program for over a decade because it's "too woke" for their liking. The pesticide claims are doubtless just another such misinformation campaign.