Vox and NRA

There is a site called Vox that gets a lot of attention because it is bankrolled by network television company and because it purports to explain things. Sensible people never go there. A sensible person will have no idea what the place looks like. A Google search says its mission is simple: to explain the news. Important because the network that sank two hundred million (!) dollars into this site will be hosting Republican debates.

I read about this site every day of the week. Every hour of the day. The only reason that is so is because otherwise sensible people keep track of their nonsense and bring it to our attention regularly. They're honestly too idiotic to discuss but here they are being discussed and this happens as I say every day.

They will reliably use every incident to further their position on gun control, they will whine and whinge about the subject being closed, meaning they keep attacking along the same lines and keep losing. They don't know the first thing about guns and imagine themselves experts all they know for certain is they hate guns with a passion and to their core leaving them open to say ridiculous things and say them fiercely without ever backing down, apologizing, acknowledging counter positions, or recognizing their own mistakes. Today we get "Sorry for the confusion" meaning their confusion, nobody else paying attention was slightly confused, only Vox themselves and projecting that confusion onto others for they are the self-proclaimed explainers.

It is a liberal symbol. Gear, electricity. See any guns or bullets in there? CCC, WPA, ring a bell? You have to be a grown up adult liberal most likely quite old to know such things, and Vox is not a site for adults. And you have to be not educated in liberal American public school system run largely by Democrats to be familiar with historical liberal government acronyms, among their most famous and successful programs the new generation mixes up with despised firearms advocate group that they persistently mistake for an industry lobby.

Ezra is hiring

"Project X (working title) is a user's guide to the news produced by the beat reporters and subject area experts who know it best.

We'll have regular coverage of everything from tax policy to True Detective, but instead of letting that reporting gather dust in an archive, we'll use it to build and continuously update a comprehensive set of explainers of the topics we cover. We want to create the single best resources for news consumers anywhere.

We'll need writers who are obsessively knowledgeable about their subjects to do that reporting and write those explainers -- as well as ambitious feature pieces. We'll need D3 hackers and other data viz geniuses who can explain the news in ways words can't. We'll need video producers who can make a two-minute cartoon that summarizes the Volcker rule perfectly. We'll need coders and designers who can build the world's first hybrid news site/encyclopedia. And we'll need people who want to join Vox's great creative team because they believe in making ads so beautiful that our readers actually come back for them too. 

Sound like you? Then apply now.

Job location: Vox Headquarters, Washington, DC. "

Ezra Klein has signed with Vox Media. Based on the negotiations with the Washington Post, which did not pan out, it is speculated that he "plans to hire at least three-dozen editorial staffers at the new venture."

How will Ezra do?

According to Huffpo, Ezra Klein is leaving the Washington Post to begin a new venture, and has enlisted the aide of fellow Juicebox mafioso, Matt Ygleisias:

"Klein's possible departure from The Washington Post had been the talk of D.C. media for the past month, with the paper finally announcing Tuesday that he, Melissa Bell and Dylan Matthews were leaving for a new venture.

Yglesias, a longtime friend of Klein who came up in the same political and policy blogging world, is the first non-Post journalist to join up [now that he will be leaving Slate].

Klein has not yet announced the site's name or his financial backer, but speculation within the Post has focused on Vox Media as investing in the project. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Klein has been in talks with Vox -- which owns sites like The Verge, SB Nation and Curbed -- among other potential investors."

For some background on the origin of the term, Juicebox Mafia:

(2009) "Much internet attention has been given to the “Juicebox Mafia”, a group of very young, Jewish, liberal bloggers who have been sharply critical of Israel, especially in the wake of the recent Gaza incursion. The terms Juicebox Mafia was coined and popularized by ideological opponents of the group (Noah Pollack in Commentary, Marty Peretz in the New Republic);  but like the terms “Tory” and “queer”, it’s an insult which fast became a badge of honor.  The core of the Juicebox Mafia would include Matthew Yglesias, Spencer Ackerman, Ezra Klein and Dana Goldstein." -Jeet Heer

(2008) Marty Peretz of The New Republic stated the the "tag-line" was specific to the "Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein and Ackerman trio," and was "provided by a regular contributor to TNR," which according to Spencer Ackerman, was Eli Lake (scroll to third comment). In the same piece Peretz also said: "I pity them their hatred of their inheritance. Actually of both their inheritances, Jewish and American. They are pip-squeaks, and I do not much read them. But when any one of them writes a real doozey it is likely to come to my attention.I have known one of them, Spencer Ackerman, a smart young man but, alas, not as smart as he thinks and certainly not as smart as he needs to be. He worked at The New Republic for maybe two years or even three for which I apologize; you can look up his trash by yourself."

I recall when fifty-something Mickey Kaus was let go by Slate, and a short time later Ezra, then in his early twenties, was brought aboard. You know that left a mark.