While this ‘dance’ of negotiations plays out over the next week, readers should consider that the entire ‘Fiscal Cliff’ charade could be resolved with one program, one proposal involving taxation on the wealthiest 1% of US households—i.e. those whose average annual income is about $1.5 million and whose effective and actual income tax rate today is not the nominal 35% but in fact only about 22.5%.

The very wealthy 1% actual income tax rate has never been the 35% top rate. In 1980 that top rate was 70% but the actual effective rate they paid was only 45%. Similarly, today the reported top rate is 35% but the actual rate on average 22.5%. Some hedge fund managers making billions a year actually pay less than 10%.

Note: This is Essay 7 in the series I have been writing on “Re-Examining Lucasville.” Two persons, one an experienced journalist and the other a prisoner at Lucasville in April 1993, have said the same thing. They believe the main idea that should tie our thoughts together is: THEY DON’T KNOW WHO DID IT!

That is, five men have been sentenced to death for murdering ten victims during the occupation of L-block, but the authorities (the State of Ohio, the Lucasville Special Prosecutor, the several Assistant Prosecutors, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol) do not know who actually committed the homicides.

Instead, the authorities have gone after the men who they believe were “leaders” of the eleven-day occupation of L-block. They have been able to get away with their claims because of the Ohio doctrine of “complicity,” which allows courts to sentence people to death if they were present at the scene of criminal conduct or were otherwise involved.

Poindexter Village, a public housing community on the Near East Side of Columbus, was threatened on Friday by illegal demolition activity by Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority ("CMHA"). In a pointed telephone conversation with CMHA Vice President of Business Development, Bryan Brown, City of Columbus Historic Preservation Officer Randy Black ordered the illegal activity to stop. Based on that emergency phone call, CMHA demolition has been temporarily halted.

On Friday, under the guise of asbestos abatement, CMHA began tearing out windows, including sills and lintels of the historic, but now shuttered Poindexter Village public housing community. These actions are in violation of federal regulations which require completion of an historic review before any demolition can take place. This historic review has not been completed. In fact, CMHA demolition work began on the day public comments were due, and before the adoption of a binding Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that would determine what should happen to this historic property.