ROGER SIMON: Is ‘Villaraigosa’ Spanish for ‘Village Idiot’?

Claro que no, but it might as well be, considering the remarks of the Los Angeles mayor, a sleazy party hack who — as most Angelenos know — spends more time chasing skirts than doing anything for this city, which is in by far the worst shape it has been in any time since I arrived here in 1968. And those who are suffering most are the Hispanics and blacks Villaraigosa relied upon for his election and pretends to help.

To set the record straight, yes, I know Antonio Villaraigosa’s name is actually a combination of Vilar and Raigosa, taken when Antonio Vilar married Corina Raigosa back in 1987 to affirm their “lifetime of fidelity.”

According to The New Yorker, Corina first filed for divorce in 1994 when she, in the midst of treatment for thryoid cancer, discovered Antonio was having an affair. They reconciled two years later. Multiple affairs thereafter Corina finally dissolved the marriage in 2007. Not surprisingly, Villaraigosa’s serial philandering continued with other partners after the divorce. (You can check the sorry history on Wikipedia, if you want to bother. The Villaraigosas have four children and eighteen grandchildren.)

So why are the Democrats trucking out this smarmy creep — who has the knowledge base of a high school junior with absolutely no genuine accomplishments of which I am aware — for the election?

Because he’s Hispanic, obviously. If Villaraigosa were an Anglo, they’d be hiding him under the bed.

Racists.

HUMAN-POWERED HELICOPTERS go head-to-head.

HMM, WASN’T THERE A STAR TREK EPISODE WHERE THERE WERE TWO CATS LIKE THIS, WITH THE BLACK SIDES REVERSED? Venus the Two-Faced Cat a Mystery: Famous feline may have different DNA on each side of her body.

THE HILL: Eastwood inspires ‘National Empty Chair Day’ on Twitter.

UPDATE: More coverage from Politico.

MORE: Wall Street Journal: On Twitter, ‘Empty Chair Day’ Slams DNC.

ROGER KIMBALL is feeling sorry for Maureen Dowd.

CHICAGO COMES TO NORTH CAROLINA: 30,000 Dead North Carolinians Registered To Vote.

A WOMAN’S GOT TO KNOW HER LIMITATIONS. NH woman arrested 4 times in 26 hours for loud music, assault.

IT’S NOT A FLYING CAR, but I would sort of like a Jedi Hover Bike. “The vehicle itself uses ducted fans instead of exposed rotors. That prevents dust and debris from flying up, which is an important concern at low altitudes in the desert. In unmanned versions of the vehicle, it also allows ground crews to literally grab hold of it if something goes wrong. While the most recent prototype ran with a rotary engine and offered 20 minutes of flight, DeRoche said the design is ‘engine agnostic.’ Ideally, he’d wants a low-emissions powerplant that could run for an hour and a half.”

AT AMAZON, 100 MP3 Albums for $5 each.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Surviving State Fair Food.

CARS: Inside Line pits Tesla Model S against Porsche Panamera GTS.

EMPTY CHAIR DAY HEADLINES AT DRUDGE:

Also this.

MORE ON THE Homeland Security / ICE sexual harassment scandal.

ABC NEWS: It’s Obama vs. Obama As Democratic Convention Begins. “President Obama has met his own worst enemy, and his name is Barack Obama. As the Democratic National Convention gets underway this week in North Carolina — a state that epitomized the Obama wave of 2008 but has slipped steadily from the Democrats’ grasp since then — memories of the hope and expectations the president embodied four years ago loom over the gathering.”

UPDATE: The GOP agrees: We’ve Heard It All Before.

RASMUSSEN: Romney 48, Obama 44.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Israel: Coping With Its Gas Bonanza.

ED DRISCOLL: From Shirtsleeves to Hair Shirt in Three Generations.

OFF MESSAGE: Antonio Villaraigosa: Obama ‘doesn’t want to cut taxes for the middle class.’

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT YESTERDAY: My Sunday Washington Examiner column: Politics, And The Importance of Showing Up. “Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of life is showing up. True enough — except that in politics, the number is more like 100 percent.”

LIKE CORY BOOKER, HE MUST HAVE PUT HIS MANHOOD IN A BLIND TRUST: O’Malley Does An About Face: Yeah, We’re LOTS Better Off Than We Were Four Years Ago! What Was I Thinking?

Related: What Recovery?… Median Household Income Has Declined 5% During Obama’s So-Called Recovery. Yeah, but since he’s a Democrat, the press doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

UPDATE: David Freddoso: “That’s odd. Today’s DNC message is that we are better off than 4yrs ago and it’s Bush’s fault.” Heh.

Oh, what the hell, let’s run that graphic again:

MICKEY KAUS: Why The Fact-Checkosphere Is Failing:

So, as I understand it, this year the MSM will righteously strike back against “Post-Truth Politics” through rigorous fact-checking, followed by a manly, non-balanced, yet authoritative calling out of transgressors for the liars that they are. James Fallows and Jay Rosen, among others, have heralded this great new day. One problem, of course, is the ease–rather, the constant temptation–of presenting debatable policy issues as right/wrong fact issues, a problem emphasized by dissenter Ben Smith yesterday. Another is the way what Smith calls “the new pseudo science of fact-checks” opens up a giant sluice for the introduction of concealed bias, especially when “facts” are fed to the fact-checkers by the competing campaigns.

But a simpler problem is that the MSM’s fact-checkers often don’t know what they’re talking about. For example, the oft-cited CNN-”fact check” of Romney’s welfare ad makes a big deal of HHS secretary Sebelius’ pledge that she will only grant waivers to states that “commit that their proposals will move at least 20% more people from welfare to work.” CNN swallows this 20% Rule whole in the course of declaring Romney’s objection “wrong” . . . .

But Robert Rector, a welfare reform zealot who nevertheless does know what he’s talking about, has now published a longer analysis of the 20% rule. Turns out it’s not as big a scam as I’d thought it was. It’s a much bigger scam. For one thing, anything states do to increase the number of people on welfare will automatically increase the “exit” rate–what the 20% rule measures–since the more people going on welfare, the more people leave welfare for jobs in the natural course of things, without the state’s welfare bureaucrats doing anything at all. Raise caseloads by 20% and Sebelius’ standard will probably be met. (Maybe raise caseloads 30% just to be sure.) So what looks like a tough get-to-work incentive is actually a paleoliberal “first-get-on-welfare” incentive. But the point of welfare reform isn’t to get more people onto welfare.

It’s understandable that MSM reporters and non-profit checkers–some of whom may have been given only a few hours to get to the bottom of a subject they’ve never written about before–would easily fall for a bit of bureaucratic fakery. Do they have to be so self-righteous about it?

Absolutely. They’re in it for the self-righteousness. It’s part of their pay.

MICHAEL BARONE: Are We Watching The Last National Conventions? Well, not that many are watching.

UPDATE: Or maybe they are.

TIM CAVANAUGH: Where’s Media Criticism of TMZ’s Racist Jihad Against Deneeta Pope?

EUGENE VOLOKH HAS QUESTIONS about the Republican Party Platform’s statement on pornography. “I’m asking: How can the government’s policy possibly achieve its stated goals, without creating an unprecedentedly intrusive censorship machinery, one that’s far, far beyond what any mainstream political figures are talking about right now?”