Jiu-Jitsu Red to Blue: Crushing MAGA Under The Weight of Their Own Arguments

As governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz signed an education bill mandating that menstrual sanitary products be made available, free of charge, in all public middle and high schools in Minnesota — and that they be available to all students who menstruate; not just girls, but also non-binary kids, and trans boys. Walz also signed legislation that made Minnesota a “refuge” state for trans people, who woul...

As governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz signed an education bill mandating that menstrual sanitary products be made available, free of charge, in all public middle and high schools in Minnesota — and that they be available to all students who menstruate; not just girls, but also non-binary kids, and trans boys. Walz also signed legislation that made Minnesota a “refuge” state for trans people, who woul...

Fresh from winning the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson — one of the “Tennessee Three” famously known for their protests after the Covenant School shooting in Nashville — updates host Tish Durkin on her plan to upset incumbent Senator Marsha Blackburn. That plan is to meet Blackburn where she is: on the wrong side of the issues that matter mo...

U.S. Army vet turned veterans’ advocate Naveed Shah joins host Tish Durkin for a conversation that runs the gamut: from the necessity of the PACT Act to the insanity of active-duty families on food stamps, with accusations of “wokeness” in between. 

In the worst vice-presidential rollout ever, JD Vance has become famous for cruelty toward unmarried childless women and nostalgia for the stay-in-the-marriage era of battered wives.  In this quick take, host Tish Durkin notes an even bigger group of vulnerable Americans that Vance has also attacked: divorced women — and men.  

Joe Biden leaves the presidential ticket, Kamala Harris smoothly sails into his place — and MAGA starts crying “foul!” on behalf of the 14 million Democrats who voted for Biden only for him to bow out before nomination. Speaking as one of those 14 million, host Tish Durkin would rather be dead than have her vote or voice defended by the Christo-fascist cult that tried to deny the will of the Ameri...

Host Tish Durkin rides the roller coaster that is life as a Democrat since Joe Biden’s implosive debate. First, she loses her mind, and her lunch, at the performance of the glaringly old president. Then she wonders why so much of the what-now conversation has skipped straight over the perfectly good, definitely-not-old vice president. Finally, she arrives at the only conclusion that any normal, sm...

Host Tish Durkin has said it before and will say it again: ignore the polls. They’re basically bin liner. Lest this sound like happy talk to calm the nerves of Biden supporters freaking out over the bad numbers that are sticking to a good president, consider Michigan — where Biden’s numbers may be artificially good. In that swing state's Democratic primary in February, more than 100,000 Michig...

Donald Trump insists that his status as a convicted felon actually helps him  — and not just with his base, but with a crucial part of Joe Biden’s: African-Americans. Trump and his GOP swear that Trump’s legal troubles make him relatable to Black men in particular, because they are all victims of a justice system that is rigged against them. Once she is finished choking on that ridiculous argument...

In rhetoric, MAGA men are made to run the world. In reality, they don’t even rule the roost. Kansas City Chief/conservative Catholic spokesmodel Harrison Butker recently went viral admonishing female college graduates to stay home and support their husbands‘ worldly dreams.  Meanwhile, Samuel Alito became the second MAGA man on the Supreme Court who couldn’t keep his own wife away from the insurre...

To look at the mainstream media — let alone the right-wing media machine — there isn’t a college in America that isn’t being torn apart by pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the anti-semitism they are said to feed and feed upon.  Host Tish Durkin suspects that the truth of these protests is much more complicated. In part one of an ongoing look at the academic wars, she visits the encampment in her...

Everyone knows: MAGA has made it easier and easier to buy guns, carry guns, transport guns. Everyone needs to know: MAGA has also made it easier and easier to steal guns. Along with the steep rise in the number of Americans who own guns has come a steep rise in the number of Americans who leave guns lying around, unsecured in their cars or trucks — and, therefore, a steep rise in the number of cri...

OK, host Tish Durkin is never really going to defend Alabama senator Katie Britt, who would be scary with or without her weird and widely-panned response to Joe Biden’s State of The Union address. But she does think it’s worth attacking some of Britt’s attackers.

In the giant funhouse mirror that is American politics today, this may be the weirdest distortion of all: by any objective measure, Joe Biden has created one of the most successful administrations in modern U.S. history — and members of his own party are palpably, if not openly, wishing they could get rid of him. Jobs and wages are up. Crime and inflation are down. Crumbling roads, bridges and por...

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that embryos frozen for purposes of in vitro fertilization count as full human children, and the GOP had a massive collective heart attack. This is bizarre because, for purposes of forbidding abortion, this same GOP has put infinite money and muscle into legislation, jurisprudence, field operations and propaganda fiercely ded...

  In 2019, the New York State legislature passed significant bail reform. In 2020, crime spiked nationwide. The MAGA-mired GOP raced to connect the two — and a number of big-name Democrats ran right along. Fast forward to today: Bail reform, albeit amended, remains largely in place — but in New York as elsewhere, crime is on the decline. Host Tish Durkin welcomes Michael Gianaris, Deputy Majority...

Fox News hyped its recent Ron-DeSantis-vs-Gavin-Newsom smackdown as a great debate between red and blue. Of course, it was really just a chance for the two governors to bash each other by drawing the supposedly-great contrast between their two states. Notwithstanding her impulse to side with Newsom over the dark lord of book bans, reproductive surveillance and fossil fuels, Tish Durkin finds it’s...

The whole point of Jiu-Jitsu Red to Blue is to leave the usual (if well-taken) lefty talking points to the usual (if wisely-spoken) suspects, and focus on the myriad of ways in which the MAGA-mired GOP is actually weak on every one of its alleged strong suits. Every now and then, however, an exception must be made. In light of the unexpectedly strong Democratic showing in the most recent round of...

If the U.S. House of Representatives go dark for an indeterminate period of time to figure out who its leader is, this podcast can go quiet for a few weeks, quite literally to hear its new voices. Host Tish Durkin signs off until mid-November, one year before the all-important election of 2024. The Halloween candy will likely be gone, but the turkey won’t yet be gobbled,  when JiuJitsu Red to Blue...

The stunning indictment of Democratic senator Robert Menendez might not seem like a great counterpoint to MAGA — but if you ask host Tish Durkin, it is. Three reasons why: It refutes the GOP gripe that the Department of Justice does not go after Democrats. It leaves plenty of time for New Jersey’s Democratic primary voters to pick a fresh, clean candidate. And, given the calls from state and local...

Another week, another round of Democrats claiming to admire the accomplishments of Joe Biden’s first term while calling upon him not to seek a second. Clearly, these people have never heard of Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, both of whom sailed into the White House on the backwinds generated by Democrats bellowing against the leader — their own leader — already occupying it. As Reagan might have p...

Another week, another real Biden achievement for real Americans that almost nobody has noticed.  Host Tish Durkin draws attention to just one of the significant pro-worker rulings made by the National Labor Relations Board since it has been run by pro-worker Biden appointees. Thanks to Team Joe, unions will once again be able to unionize, and employers will less able to stop them they have been in...

Last week's GOP presidential primary debate seemed to cover the whole range of issues, from abortion to Ukraine, with climate change and the economy in between. But with the exceptions of Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson — two horses so dark they are barely in the race — every candidate on the stage self-destructed in answering the question that mattered most. Asked whether they would support...

The absolute most important thing missing from the first Republican primary debate was definitely not Donald Trump. It was any serious discussion of the most serious issues facing the United States, because MAGA won’t allow any. Climate change, immigration, gun safety, public education and racial justice are just a few examples of the pressing issues that aren’t issues so much as labels for a whol...

For years now, Ohio has been moving right ideologically. But on August 8, the people of the Buckeye State were just plain right. Asked to weigh in on Issue One, a ballot initiative aimed at squashing majority rights in general and reproductive rights in particular, voters of both parties didn’t just say “no.” They shouted "NO F*&@!ING WAY”,  handing a 14-point defeat to Issue One and an e...