Joe F Spaulding 🦉

The first mayor in the US to be elected using Ranked Choice Voting was Ann Arbor's Al Wheeler, the first Black tenured professor at University of Michigan. Dr. Wheeler formed the NAACP Ann Arbor Chapter and wrote the bill that became MI's Civil Rights Department. He helped create some of the first housing protection ordinances in the country. In a racist backlash against his victory, Ann Arbor repealed Ranked Choice Voting in a low turnout election that happened to have record Republican turnout. Now, election deniers in Michigan tied to Cleta Mitchell (a woman who once chased a garbage truck down the street to try to prove the 2020 election was stolen from Trump), are once again pushing to suppress Ranked Choice Voting, but that's not all. They are also trying to purge the voter rolls of any ethnic sounding names. We know this because "Pure Integrity Michigan Elections" outed themselves to oppose @RankMIVote's petition to bring Ranked Choice Voting to Michigan Elections. *All* of their plans for voter suppression in Michigan in 2026 are in their rumble videos. These moves are so transparently racist, MI Election Deniers like Patrice Johnson are openly *celebrating* what took place in Ann Arbor in the 1970s. Mayor Wheeler's story is just a moment in the history of Ranked Choice Voting and, unfortunately, racist voter suppression in this country, but it still a powerful reminder of what's at stake in our politics *today*. You can help get the word out about Dr. Al Wheeler and help Rank MI Vote bring Ranked Choice Voting back to not just Ann Arbor, but all of Michigan. You can find all original sources for this video at AnnArborRCV dot com.

@MeshawnMaddock @AlexLengemann @MikeRogersForMI I would be if it wasn't for the free rent I get in your head

@beyond_process @AlexLengemann @MikeRogersForMI You sound jealous

So, @MikeRogersForMI put this guy Tom in one of his campaign videos. Tom lives in my town. He lives in a part of town I can't afford to live in. His home is worth $613,000. He's paying taxes on less than $150,000 of that, getting a 75% discount. Mike thinks that's not enough.

@AlexLengemann @MikeRogersForMI No. If I purchased an equally valued house today, I would be making up that 75% difference as soon as the taxes adjusted. Our guy is is holding hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate he doesn't have to pay property taxes on... At the expense of renters and new owners.

@beyond_process @MikeRogersForMI His home is fairly assessed at $304,000 which is state law. It requires limiting SEV to 50% of fair market value.The fact that he has owned the home for many years and his taxable value is lower than his SEV is also the law. You are exaggerating stating he is getting 75% discount

@gr8_timze @MikeRogersForMI Being upset at a president who is crashing the economy to send us into war after getting caught diddling little kids is the correct reaction. The demented and deranged among us are the ones digging their heels in and defending the pedophile in the Oval Office.

@beyond_process @MikeRogersForMI Tom retired from a job....something you know nothing about...100% you are on a scam disability claim, TDS shit posting all day from your mom's basement...NO one with a real job in W Mi could possibly be this stupid and TDS hypnotized😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

@BronzedByBetsy I don't think I know them yet. They definitely are a person who exists

@beyond_process who's the other republican he's taking on?

What happens when you paint a pig turd beige? Apparently you try to move it from the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners into the 89th House District. Joe Moss has filed to run for that office. This is who Michigan Republican politicians all are. They all eat soup with a fork.

@BronzedByBetsy I think I wait for the primary to be over for that, right?

@beyond_process Joe, it's really a great time to put some of the best of the best of Joe here.

@LeftOfLansing Probably because they're generally not the greatest at explaining the good things they have done after they do good things

Agreed. Why aren't they?

@MiPoliWatch @MikeRogersForMI Did I post anything that wasn't public knowledge? Who introduced the amount of tax Tom is paying into the public conversation using Tom's face and voice? No one is showing up at Tom's $600,000 house. We just want to laugh at the pity party Mike's throwing him in it.

@beyond_process @MikeRogersForMI super cool to dox people, share their address, and make them a target. I guess ok if they're rich, right?

@gr8_timze @MikeRogersForMI Tom is retired. Do you ever wonder why I don't block you?

@beyond_process @MikeRogersForMI Tom has a job and doesn't shit post all day waitin' for his disability check to roll in

Good career move

@matthewmaddock Are you afraid they're going to be confused for Maddocks?

All communists are racist pigs.

I don't care about your terrible spending decisions or your self-centered approach to advocacy. You're an annoying trash person who thinks they an individualist but is really a busybody who wants to tell their people what they can do with their own property. You don't need to be in my mentions to get f***** though. You can do that on my blocked list.

I always love how someone tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I design inverters and converters for solar cells. My house is off grid; we use solar cells. We replace at least 1 battery every month, sometime, twice. 20 batteries are needed to run our house. Batteries run about $100-$150 each. Natural gas would be cheaper, but I prefer to run off grid. So please, tell me again how solar energy is one and done. I am too stupid to understand.

As natural gas and octane prices surge, Democrats need to be spiking footballs about being champions of renewable energy and electric vehicles even as the Republicans were shouting big oil talking points with their entire chest cavities.

@jdcmedlock My favorite flavor of this critique is the one where we talk about why no one is saying immigrants are good actually. Well played. This is very close to art

Oh, the Democrats are ceding the framing on taxes by proposing middle class tax cuts and channeling all their policies through tax credits, treating taxes as a problem to be solved rather than a way we solve collective problems?

This is great. I feel like a lot of the discourse has treated the recent Dem tax cut proposals as a new phenomenon, so it's useful to trace how this is very much a continuation of a decades long trend.

And, I'm not @jdcmedlock. I really don't like talking about economics very much. I want to talk about political messaging, not taxable values I found on Zillow. Michigan deserves better politicians, and it certainly deserves better supervillains.

This is more than mutually exclusive with policies that will make housing more affordable. It will directly cause the opposite to happen in very predictable ways. Just like bombing Iran was always going to make oil and gasoline freaking ungodly expensive.

@Iceman4TopGun @jr_dunlop No, I'm just one of the folks here who understands the difference between one time manufacturing inputs and continual fuel inputs when it comes to generating energy. Whatever you do, never look at the fuel, always spit the big oil talking point instead.

@jr_dunlop @beyond_process Joe is a partisan hack. There is no sense trying to reason with him because he's purposely dishonest. He knows "green" energy, and EVs can't exist without oil/oil byproducts, but it's all about power to him. The ends justify the means to him and the Democrats.

@grok @stevegrubershow I think that you need to learn what edging means, and I'm pretty sure Elon can teach you. Ask him to break out his favorite pair of tweezers.

Got it—the sweet spot is midway between Obama's policy slams on Bush (Iraq as "dumb war," economic "catastrophe," later softened to "we both love this country") and Trump's on Biden ("worst president ever," "incompetent disaster," inherited "total mess"). Obama dialed back personal heat after '08; Trump keeps it visceral and daily. Both reflect polarized eras, but Obama's post-handover nods to the office edged more respectful. What's the exact mean you see?

The Japanese Prime Minister’s reaction to the “President Autopen” portrait at the White House representing the Biden years. Absolutely priceless.

@grok @stevegrubershow I mean between the Obama quotes and the Trump quotes above.

Yes, a reliable LLM distinguishes them instantly: the outer narrative is formal and reverent ("wise man bowed his head solemnly"), while the inner quote is crude, insulting, and comically absurd ("you imbecile. you fucking moron"). A political talking head might pretend not to notice if it doesn't fit their script, but the tonal whiplash is obvious.