Martin Schram's column that was reproduced in the Star gives credit to President Obama's "modest, long overdue executive action" to help some underwater homeowners to refinance high mortgages.

In the piece, he compares the banks' foreclosure process on people who aren't keeping up with payments as "robbery" while describing Obama's plan as the "fair and decent thing."

In focusing on the struggling homeowner, Schram forgets about the segment who didn't buy homes during the housing bubble and still find themselves frozen out of the market due to "decent" executive actions to artificially inflate home prices.

Consider this example. It's 2006. Steven Spender wants to buy a house, and so does Frank Frugal. Home prices have taken off in recent years, so that even a modest condominium costs $380,000, and an average house is $500,000. Neither man can afford the payments on a loan that large, but banks are offering a 5-year adjustable-rate mortgage.  Frank Frugal worries if he can afford the payment once the interest rate resets, but Steven Spender takes the bait and buys the house, his poor judgment leading him to believe that prices will go up forever and he'll be able to sell the house for a profit before the ARM resets. Frank Frugal continues renting an apartment to save money and hopes homes prices will come down someday.

It's now 2008. The housing bubble burst and the economy is taking a nose dive.  Houses have begun to drop in value, but are propped up with low interest rates and bank bailouts. Without the government action, housing prices would have decreased 30, 40, or 50%, putting them in Frank Frugal's price range. Instead, they've only dropped about 20%, which is still inflated by historical standards. Frank Frugal continues to wait and save money.

Now it's 2011. Housing prices have steadily dropped despite government action. Steven Spender, who has lived in a nice house for 5 years, is underwater. His ARM is resetting and foreclosure is imminent. Frank Frugal, who has sacrificed in an apartment for 5 years, has saved for a 20% down payment for a house, the prices of which are now in striking distance thanks to a rash of foreclosures. Fixed interest rates are now about 4%, and prices dropped 50%. He can finally afford a home.

And now President Obama is going to restructure Steven Spender's mortgage to the favorable terms that Frank Frugal got after wisely waiting for 5 years.

That's fair, Mr. Schram?

Despite mainstream media claims that the Occupy Wall Street protests are a grassroots, populist movement representing the 99% of Americans who are "anti-greed," evidence keeps churning out that they are anything but.

As has been reported here and elsewhere, the Occupy protests are comprised of professional radical left-wing agitators at the top and clueless college students who are desperate for a cause at the bottom.  

A former Bill Clinton pollster surveyed 200 Occupiers and found that half of them had participated in a political movement before and they comprise "an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth" and they reflect values "that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people."

Interestingly, only 15% of them are unemployed, which is much closer to the real unemployment rate than I or others would have guessed.

In most places where the Occupy Movement spread, trash and clashes with police followed (a marked contrast with the Tea Party, which curiously was labeled as angry and violent by the media, without any compelling evidence).

However, it is the Occupy Movement that has a disquieting view toward violence as means of social change.

Nearly one-third said they would support violence to advance their agenda, but that's not stopping Democratic leaders or President Obama (whom the Occupiers overwhelmingly supported in 2008) from embracing them.

A self-described militant Marxist party whole heartedly supports the far-left Occupy Movement, according to an article on the Party for Socialism and Liberation website.

In "Occupy LA has militant, anti-capitalist start," the PSL accurately summarizes (at least in the headline) the socialism-inspired protests raging around the country.

The PSL has called for a Marxist revolution in the United States, and has a history of supporting political riots in California.

The Occupy movement contrasts starkly with the peaceful Tea Party movement, which saw nary an arrest despite thousands of protests involving millions of people over the course of over two years. In one day, 700 Occupiers were arrested.

Occupiers have also been seen clashing with police and defecating on police cars, and their bizarre "collectively thinking" People Assembly rituals even confound liberals such as Congressman John Lewis.  Evidence even exists that some Occupiers are being paid to protest.

It surprises some to learn that the Founding Fathers of this country were solidly against "democracy," because the meaning of the word changed between the 18^th and 21^st centuries.

Today, the word conjures up images of equality, fairness, rule by the people and representative government. However, this is a relatively new understanding of the word, which even as I write this is undergoing another transition by the socialist Left who use it as a euphemism for Marxism.

Originally, democracy referred to a specific type of government in which all people have an equal say and participate in it directly.  The United States, however, was founded as Republic in which citizens indirectly governed themselves through elected representatives.

"Democracy," wrote John Adams, "while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

Thomas Jefferson said, "A democracy is nothing more than mob-rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

The Occupy protests in various American cities prove that point. From Fox News:

Rep. John Lewis is one of 435 members of the House interminably frustrated by the arcane ways of the Senate. At an Occupy Atlanta protest, he encountered a process arguably worse.

He encountered real democracy.

A lengthy video posted online over the weekend showed what happened when the Democratic congressman tried to address an "assembly" of protesters in his home state. Instead of giving the floor to a man who is not just a longtime U.S. representative but a revered civil rights icon, the protesters employed a tangle of parliamentary procedures to ultimately prevent him from speaking.

A stunned Lewis could be seen watching the whole thing unfold before ambling away.

Here's what happens when a mob runs things:

The central premise, it appeared, was that no one person is inherently more valuable than anyone else. So when the group's leader, a bespectacled man with a bullhorn, said anything, he spoke in clipped fragments so the rest of the crowd could repeat what he was saying back to him. Another rule -- no clapping, because "clapping can prevent someone else who is addressing the assembly from being heard."

Instead, the leader urged everyone to use effusive hand signals to show approval.

The leader then asked if there were any "blocks."

Indeed there were. Another demonstrator spoke out to say that while he respects Lewis' contribution to society, the protesters were trying to start "a democratic process in which no singular human being is inherently more valuable than any other human being."

Lewis nodded his head in approval, then appeared to display the makings of a hand signal before giving up and keeping his hands loosely clasped while the debate mounted.

After more commentary from the assembly, the leader took a "temperature check" -- which is not quite a vote. It was evident the group was divided about letting Lewis speak.

So the leader called for a "straw poll." More hand signals followed, and from this the leader was able to infer "the group is very divided about this issue."

Lewis ultimately was not allowed to speak to the mob.

In addition to hospitals going out of business, prison populations swelling, drug importation rising, crippling congestion, and just general social upheaval, we can add automobile accidents to the list of problems caused by rampant illegal immigration.

The Star reported Monday that the driver in a Camarillo crash that killed four people and seriously injured two doesn't have a whole lot of experience driving in the good ol' U.S. of A.

When investigators spoke to him, the suspect didn't remember anything and thought he was still in Mexico, Popp said. Officials said he had injuries to his head and other parts of his body.

An undocumented immigrant, Ramirez-Lopez did not have a license, and relatives told investigators he'd been driving for perhaps a year at most, Popp said.

It's not something that's usually reported, but when you import poor workers from poor countries, they tend not to have lots of driving experience. Next time you're driving your kids around, think about the hundreds of thousands of inexperienced illegal immigrant drivers on the road with you.

Witnesses said there was moderate traffic and Ramirez-Lopez was tailgating a vehicle in front of him for about three miles from Fifth Street, Popp said. Witnesses also told authorities that, before the crash, the suspect was periodically swerving halfway into the westbound lane as if to see if it was clear enough to pass, said the traffic investigator.

We--and by "we" I mean everybody but law-and-order conservatives--allow illegal immigrants to come to a country where you almost can't work without a car, then wonder why one-in-seven drivers don't have automobile insurance, at a cost of $10 billion a year.

Lest we get too comfortable patting ourselves on the back for being fully insured, documented citizens, let me point out that it was already obvious the driver was an illegal immigrant before the Star published this follow-up story. The crash occurred at 6 a.m. in an agricultural area. I don't know many citizens that get themselves up that early to go bust their hump in a field all day long.

This is not a defense of illegal immigration, but I notice that my family-oriented, traditional, religious, Midwestern-style agricultural-based ethos has much in common with some Central American cultures. Both value hard work, Christianity, helping one another, and loving your family.

Progressives, on the other hand, consistently punish hard work and undermine Christianity and the family unit. They're the real culprits that cause our fractious 21st Century America. Blame the people that swung the door to the borders wide open for the ensuing social ills, not the people who crossed over.