HIS SPIRIT LIVES IN ME!

The hours that the sun sheds her light

Much stronger I am within,

But when darkness brings the night

Looms the horrors of sin

As the evening shadows begin to fall

Sadness captures me,

No longer am I standing tall

I fall on bended knee

This life is hard to explain

Even to those that care,

I’m trying hard to hide my pain

And, my insatiable fear

I know my Lord controls the world

Despite my tragedy,

For He is the Master of my soul

And, His Spirit lives in me!

© Sheriff G Ali 2011

My greatest affliction!

We can become able masters of the human heart, but only if we allow ourselves to be tutored in the school of “heart-felt” personal experience.

Kings have their troubles; the peasant has his cares; the wayfarer has many hardships; the Captain has his difficulties, and there were times when the dark valleys were too much for me, but thank God, “The Lord was my Shepherd!”

I was also tried in my friends and my counselors; they forsook me! They that ate my bread lifted up their heels against me, but my worst foes were that of my own household; my blood family; but especially my children, they were my greatest affliction.

The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honor and reproach, of health and sickness, all took a toll on me. The trials from without disturbed my peace, and from within, marred my joy. No sooner I escaped from one trial I fell into another; emerging from one season of despondency and alarm, I was again brought into the lowest depths, whilst simultaneously the waves of billows were rolling over me.

At the time, whatever my frame of mind, whatever ecstasy of depression, was the result of emotions propelled by incomprehensible deep hurt. Having been instructed in life’s personal experience, I have matured with God’s grace through the years, and with my Lord’s inexhaustible mercy, He placed me in “Green Pastures.” My soul, let my Lord’s grace continue to cheer and counsel thee,” this day!

Sheriff G Ali

© Sheriff G Ali 2010-2011

BAGHBAN TRANSLATES “CARE-TAKER! “THE UNGRATEFULNESS OF CHILDREN”

This is from the movie BAGBAN which translates “care-taker.” The Parents four children had taken, and taken and taken from their parents and they ended up treating their parents like dirt, never ever remembering that their parents gave them “all” that they had!

This video is where the children had separated their parents who never spent one night apart in the forty years they were married. The parents had given their four children all that they had, and the father ended up having to stay with one son and the children’s mom had to stay by another son, solely because their sons thought that it was a burden having both parents in the same house was too much for them. The father asked his son to use the phone to call his wife (the boy’s mother) because it was the first night they were being apart after 40 years. When he asked his son to use the phone, the boy just walked away. Here is the son’s father, heartbroken; pangs and pines; went out into the rainy street to use the phone to call his wife. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA8_kcENDxM&feature=related

MAIN YAHAAN TU WAHAAN

[This is what he was singing to his wife from the phone booth]

(ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

You and I are separate

What has life come to?

You are the only one I see

Everywhere I cast a glance

I get no sleep

I miss you badly

I can’t live without you anymore

You and I are separate

What has life come to?

It is as if time has come

To a standstill

There is gloom everywhere

I pine for you

I am lonely in body

Thirsty in soul

Not even for a moment

Why wouldn’t your face

Fade away from my eyes

Day and nights do go by

A lonely life

Just won’t go by

You and I are separate

What has life come to?

[Here he stopped singing and said to his wife, Ok then, by, “don’t forget to write.”

[Now he is about to hang up the phone and he hears his wife, as she sings]

Whenever I hear foot steps

I feel as if you have arrived

Life is whiff of fresh air

You have lent

Fragrance to my breath

These were the days

When we were always together

And time is so much different

Between us now

You and I are separate

What has life come to?

Their father had adopted a child that used to shine shoes and placed him in school. The boy did very well in school and went to England and graduated there. He returned to India and started a business. To this “boy,” his adopted father was “the image of who God is!” He got married and brought his adopted parents to their home. When you look at the short video you will see the photograph of their adopted parents. Amazing, because when his adopted parents saw this, their heart was happy and their heart was breaking as to how, their own children treated them like dirt, and this adopted son, saw them as God and Goddess! But I thought about it and thought about it, and my conclusion from my own experience in life tells me:

SUCH IS LIFE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPUUKQjKxek&feature=related

Sheriff G Ali

Vice President Aaron Burr vs. Former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton: the duel that shook the nation!

After the Congressional Supercomittee failed to reconcile its difference on budget reduction this week, many disappointed citizen may have the urge to reminisce on America’s Golden Days. But those looking back should be mindful of how far they let their gaze drift. At some pointes in the US politics, the sword, or pistol, was mightier than the pen!

Open the link for full story!

http://wp.me/p1wG70-6Z

Give thanks unto the Lord Thy God, for your blessings on this very momentous Thanksgiving Day!

Do not bet the saint in public and a devil in private, dealing in soot by night.

A cake not turned is uncooked on one side, and so it is with us in many respects, untouched by divine grace: though there is some partial obedience, there is very much rebellion left. My soul, I charge thee, see whether this day be thy case.

Are we thorough in the things of God? Has grace gone through the very centre of thy being so as to be felt in its divine operations in all thy powers and thy actions, thy words and thy thoughts? To be sanctified, spirit, soul and body; should be our aim and prayer; and although sanctification may not be perfect in thee anywhere in degree, yet it must be universal in its action; there must not be the appearance of holiness in one place and reigning of sin in another, else we too, wilt be “a cake not turned.”

A cake not turned is soon burnt on the side nearest the fire, and although no one can have too much of God, there are some who seem burnt on black with bigoted zeal for that part of truth which they have received, or are charred to a cinder with a vainglorious Pharisaic Ostentation of those religious performances which suite their humor. The assumed appearance of superior sanctity frequently accompanies a total absence of all vital Godliness.

The saint in public is a devil in private! He deals in flour by day and in soot by night. The cake which is burned on one side; is dough on the other!

If it be so with me, O Lord, turn me! Turn my unsanctified nature to the fire of Thy love and let it feel the sacred glow and let my burnt side cool a little, while I learn my own weakness and want of heat when I am removed from Thy heavenly flame. Let me not be found a double-minded man but one entirely under the powerful influence of reigning grace; for well I know if I am left like a cake unturned and am not on both sides the subject of Thy grace, I must be consumed for ever amid everlasting burnings!

Sheriff G Ali

BRITISH AGENTS assisted in the capture of SAIF AL-ISLAM, Moammar Gaddafi’s son, in a daring £25 million JAMES BOND-STYLE bugging mission!

The top-secret mission dubbed OPERATION X that gave away no clues used the latest hi-tech ELINT electronic intelligence technology to bug Saif al-Islam along with his friends and family.

Saif al-Islam had been hiding out in the desert for weeks but the breakthrough came when Saif made two consecutive calls to advise that he was alright. It allowed the joint British and French bugging operation to pinpoint where he was.

M16 Agents using the £25 million top-secret equipment to close in on Saif before calling in the Libyan Snatch Squad. Saif was targeted by the British but it was essential for the Libyans to capture him.

Saif al-Islam, the London-Educated son of Gaddafi was picked up with two aides while trying to flee to neighboring Niger. He was taken to Zintan in northern Libya.

Saif told reporters that his right bandaged hand was the result of a Royal Air Force strike during the month of October, but that he was alright!

Comment:

Saif al-Islam (39 years of age) could have done so much more with his life. He earned a PHD in Economics in London and seemed to have had in the past, much aspiration in helping his country to remove his father’s dysfunctional rule that kept the Libyan people in turmoil for forty-two years. But in the end he decided to collaborate with his father, in the further slaughter of the Libyan people that lead to the demise not only of his father but also, two of his brothers.

I do not believe that the Libyan Government would send him to the International Criminal Court, but he would be tried in Libya that would be witnessed by outside observers. However, the inevitable outcome for Saif al-Islam would be execution. Perhaps this could be a great lesson for the other Dictators that subjugate their people for the avarice of money and power! 

Saif al-Islam means “Sword of Islam”

Sheriff G Ali

How oft do they with golden pinions cleave The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant Against foul fiends to aid us militants!”

To what dignity are the chosen elevated when the brilliant courtiers of heaven become their willing servitors! Into what communion are we raised since we have intercourse with spotless celestials! How well are we defended since all the twenty-thousand chariots of God are armed for our deliverance! To whom do we owe all this? Let the Lord Jesus Christ be for ever endeared to us, for through Him we are made to sit in heavenly places far above principalities and powers.

He is to whose camp is round about them that fear Him; He is the true Michael whose foot is upon the dragon. All hail, Jesus! Thou Angels of Jehovah’s presence, to Thee this heart offers its vows.

Our lives are no different than Kings, Queens, Presidents, Prime Ministers and the Likes, for The Almighty gives Sun, Rain, Light and Darkness to all. See how this mighty man of God handled his troubles during his time on Earth!

THE SWEET PSALMIST OF ISRAEL.” 2^ND SAMUEL 23:1

Among all the saints whose lives are written in Holy Writ, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied and instructive character. In his history we meet with trials and temptations not discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord.

David knew the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the peasant has cares, and David handled a shepherd’s crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David, abode in the caves of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him.

The psalmist was also tried in his friends, his counselor Anithophel forsook him, “He that eateth bread with me, had lifted up his heel against me.” (Psalm 41) His worst foes were they of his own household: his children were his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honor and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his peace, and from within to mar his joy.

David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency and alarm, then he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God’s waves and billows rolled over him. It is probably from this cause that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of those that “truly” believes in God.

Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools – the school of heart-felt, personal experience.

As we are instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David’s psalms, and find them to be “green pastures.” My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel me this day.

For many people they make a calculated decision to join a particular religion or they were born into a respective religion. Many attend Churches, Mosques, Temples and what other form of worship they freely choose, but the question is how many people find “religion” and a house of worship that they attend, but “never” find that “Oneness” with God. 


You can find out if you have found religion or you have found God when affliction strikes. Affliction like God is no respecter of person, be it age, nationality, financial circumstances or anything that is part of this world that we live in. Death comes without any invitation and no amount of wealth can purchase even an additional second of life, for when your spirit (Spirit is derived from the Hebrew word meaning “breath”) is recalled, you must go, and naked as you came into the world, naked you shall go!

Sheriff G Ali

The European Union Uncertainty and “The Woman Riding the Beast!”

All over the ancient Middle East we find reference to the bull which is used as a symbol of strength and fertility, as well as to bull gods. El, the supreme deity of the decadent Canaanite pantheon, was often called the Bull El (he was a fertility god). Baal, the god of fertility, storms, rain, and vegetation, is also called the Bull.

Similarly among the Hittites, Aramaeans, and Babylonians, the bull gods were a dominant feature of their religions, not to mention the many bull and calf-cults linked closely to the Egyptian god Horus. Cattle cults among the Cushite peoples of Ethiopia and India may be found to this day! In Mithraism, bull worship was an important aspect of their beliefs.

Present day! 2011

  http://wp.me/p1wG70-6J

Gingrich think tank collected 37 million dollars from the health-care industry!

A think tank founded by Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich collected at least 37 million dollars over the past eight years from the major Health Care Companies and Industry Groups, offering special access to the former House Speaker and other perks, according to records and interviews!

Open the link and read the story of the duplicity of the people that have and would continue to bring America to its knee!

http://wp.me/p1wG70-6G

Newt Gingrich, Professor of Profits, made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million for giving additional “advice” to Freddie Mac.

Newt Gingrich dumped his first wife while she lay in a hospital suffering from cancer and married his second wife (left photo). Then he dumped her and married his third wife (right photo). I did not include Gingrich’s first wife out of respect for her.

Open link for the full story on Gingrich. This story encapsulates why Washington is broken and how the powerful protect and enrich themselves, unanchored to basic principles!

http://wp.me/1wG70  

President Barack Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard meet in her Office at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia.

This is exactly what the world needs; “more young Leaders!” Younger men are more apt to the future of the world than the old hags that have been around for too long, and yes, the more “women” that become world Leaders, the less chances of wars that are parasitic to everything that is good in this world!

Sheriff G Ali

Open the link to see the photo and the full story!

http://sheriffali.com/2011/11/16/november-16-2011-u-s-president-barack-obama-and-australian-prime-minister-julia-gillard-meet-in-her-office-at-parliament-house-in-canberra-australia/

Memories of the Hacienda!

Thinking about the Hacienda

The good times I remember,

I still hear the Church bells ringing

And mused by the people singing

Perhaps love does last forever

Even when relationships sever,

For this burning sensation inside

Are feelings I can’t hide

Your star is still shining

You are the Sun in my every morning,

The red rose is my passion

And the white is my compassion!

Physically, we are that broken stick

But in spirit, we remain betwixt,

And even though we fell

You’ll always be my bezel!

© Sheriff G Ali 2011

USURPING LOVE FROM ITS CORE!

Circumstances chose my destiny

Usurping love from its core,

Replacing it with mutiny

Creating an endless war

Life has never been a game for me

At times I won and times I lost,

And the reality of life’s tragedy

With its painful human cost

Putting all I had on the line

Sacrificing time and time again,

I wonder if I was blind

From tears that fell like rain

God’s grace helped me to dream again

With the solace of a peaceful Dove,

While dancing in the snow and rain

Basking in my Father’s love!

© Sheriff G Ali 2011

MORTAL MAN!

Time has lapsed so fast

Reality I cannot grasp,

The lights are getting dim,

Tears are to the brim

My yesterdays are dead and gone

This aching heart is torn,

Remove it far from me,

From torment make me free

I know there is right and wrong

But I am weak and not so strong,

I’m just a mortal man

Trying hard to understand,

If I could rewrite my story

You would always be my glory,

And since life is not so strange,

There is little I would change!

© Sheriff G Ali – 2011

God: He is the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will.

Dr. Ron Paul is filling out the paperwork as they haul Rick Perry away. Dr. Paul is ruling it Political Suicide!

Rick Perry wants to eliminate three Government Agencies! Problem is, Rick can’t name the agencies, he doesn’t know. His colleagues on stage with him try to help him out, but his Political last rites are being read to him as Dr. Ron Paul takes over!

“Commerce, Education and the – what’s the third one there? Let’s see,” the Texas Governor said during a debate Wednesday night, November 9, 2011. Perry’s rivals tried to help him out and suggested the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“EPA, there you go,” Perry said taking their word for it. But that wasn’t it. And when pressed Perry drew another blank. Moderator John Harwood, one of CNBC’s debate host asked, “You can’t name the third one?”

“The third agency of the Government I would do away with – the Education, the Commerce. And let’s see. I can’t. The third one, I can’t,” Perry said. “Oops.” Later in the debate Perry said he meant the Energy Department.

The immediate fallout was brutal beginning on Twitter as business legend and former General Electric CEO Jack Welch tweeted; “Perry’s response will be on highlight reels for years to come.”

Another tweet from Tim Albrecht spokesman for Iowa Governor Terry Branstad read; “Rick Perry just lost the debate and the entire election. You only had to name three.”

A statement by former President Gerald Ford in a 1976 Presidential debate is among the most memorable. Ford famously baffled audiences when he said, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” Later pressed by the moderator, he refused to back down. That moment haunted the rest of his campaign and he lost to Jimmy Carter.

My extraordinary dilemma is; “how can the Republicans tolerate their present list of Presidential Candidates?

Rick Perry apart from failing every debate thus far, he is on You Tube making a complete fool of himself which begs the question, was he drunk or high on pain killers?

Michele Bachmann is such a quack she makes Sarah Palin looks like Maria from the Sound of Music!

And let us not forget the wonders of wonders, Herman Cain who during an Interview on PBS said; “I hear China is trying to develop Nuclear Weapons!” Herman Cain who wants to be President should know that China has had Nuclear Weapons since 1964.

Thus it begs the question as to why these so called – Candidates - and the people that support them could even contemplate any of them becoming President of the United States.

And let us not forget the Chameleon of Chameleons – Brother Mitt Romney! Romney has changed more positions than a hooker in a dark back ally. This statement may seem offensive to some, but the actual truth is, Mitt Romney has and continues to be Pimped by every single Political Wind, and I am not speaking of the Zephyr!

Sheriff G Ali

Beyond this world of wrath and tears….

In the clutch of pains that follow me

From my head down to my sole,

I wonder what life holds’ for me?

In the darkness of my world

Despite the pangs I would not complain

Even when I pine,

And though at times I feel disdain

I know, I am wholly Thine

Beyond this world of wrath and tears

Looms, but the Heavens’ above,

With freedom from pains or fears

And the bounty of my Father’s love

So, in the midst of my circumstance

In this blessed evening shade,

I’ll live by faith and not by chance

Strong in heart and unafraid!

© Sheriff G Ali – May 9, 2011

Today, November 6, 2011 is fifteen years since I fell into a COMA and subsequently woke up to tell about it!

On November 6, 1996 I fell into a diabetic coma. At the time I fell into the coma I became totally incapacitated. I was placed in the “Emergency Section” of the hospital and this is what transpired.

With my body laying on the bed, hooked up to all of the machines, I felt my body jolting and what came next, was me standing at the side of the bed looking at my physical body laying on the bed with the penetrating view of the white sheet drawn all the way up to my neck. It was from that moment that the events that followed next you would find it hard to believe, but for me it is not about who believes or don’t believe, the fact remains is that I do believe and now fifteen years to the date, I have never stopped believing.

Open the link below, it may possibly change your own life for the better!

http://sheriff-g-ali.com/writings/writingspiritualcat-whatisaw.html

Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived!

“Each and every one of us has a train of thought on which we ride when we are alone. The dignity and nobility of our lives, as well as our happiness, depend upon the direction which that train is going, the baggage it carries, and the scenery through which it travels.

I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest; for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness; and surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams to those of the next. [I never go to sleep] without my prayers, and a half adieu unto the world, and take my farewell in a colloquy with God.”

Republicans are job killers - Putting Millionaires Before Jobs!

Unless and until the American Voters wake up and realize that the Republican Party in both the House of Representatives and the Senate doesn’t care about them unless they are millionaires and billionaires, America, sooner rather than later would become a third world country.

98% of the working class American people are the Citizens who have made America the shining light since the inception of mankind, but the Republicans who initiated deregulating everything and at every turn, have tried to eradicate The Unions since President Reagan took office, they, the Republicans, would be the demise of our great society.

Looking back at everything that were implemented that is decent and good, humane and have and continues to assist those that are less fortunate than some of us who are fortunate, the Republicans have been and to this day, are a malignant cancer, eating away at the very fabric of the very goodness that placed us – America – at the head of the Pleiades of Nations!

There’s nothing partisan about a road or a bridge or an airport; Democrats and Republicans have voted to spend billions on them for decades and long supported rebuilding plans in their own states. On Thursday, though, when President Obama’s plan to spend $60 billion on infrastructure repairs cam up for a vote in the Senate, not a single Republican agreed to break the party’s filibuster.

That’s because the bill would pay for itself with 0.7 % surtax on people making more than $1 million. That would affect about 345,000 taxpayers, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, adding an average of $13,457 to their annual tax bills. Protecting that elite group  and hewing to their rigid anti-tax vows — was more important to Senate Republicans than the thousands of construction jobs the bill would have helped create, or the millions of people who would have used the rebuilt roads, bridges and airports.

Republicans in the Senate filibustered the president’s full jobs act last month for the same reasons, protecting the 2% of America’s wealthiest at the cost of the 98% that are not! They have vowed to block the individual pieces of that bill that Democrats are now bringing to the floor. Senate Democrats have also accused them of opposing any good idea that might put people back to work and rev the economy a bit before next year’s presidential election.

There is no question that the infrastructure bill would be good for the flagging economy and good for the country’s future development. It would directly spend $50 billion on roads, bridges, airports and mass transit systems, and it would then provide another $10 billion to an infrastructure bank to encourage private-sector investment in big public works projects.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican of Texas, co-sponsored an infrastructure-bank bill in March, and other Republicans have supported similar efforts over the years. But the Republicans’ determination to stick to an anti-tax pledge clearly trumps even their own good ideas.

Biggest Public Firms Paid Little U.S. Tax, Study Says

Warren E. Buffett, take note. It is not just a few wealthy individuals paying unusually low taxes to the federal government. Corporate America is not far behind.

A comprehensive study released on Thursday found that 280 of the biggest publicly traded American companies faced federal income tax bills equal to 18.5 percent of their profits during the last three years — little more than half the official corporate rate of 35 percent and lower than their competitors in many industrialized countries.

Mr. Buffett, the billionaire investor, has said that the tax code is unfair, allowing him to pay just 17 percent in federal taxes last year, about half the percentage his secretary paid.

The corporate study, prepared by the left-leaning advocacy group Citizens for Tax Justice, examined the regulatory filings of the companies to compute each year’s current federal taxes. Some of the companies disputed the findings, saying that the study understated their tax payments by omitting deferred taxes that they may pay in future years.

Using information from the companies’ own corporate filings, however, the study concluded that a quarter of the 280 corporations owed less than 10 percent of profits in federal income taxes and 30 companies had no federal tax liability for the entire three-year period.

The report is being released as corporations are pushing for a cut in their official tax rate, saying the current system puts American companies at a disadvantage with competitors abroad and encourages them to shift jobs and investments overseas.

The Congressional supercommittee charged with cutting the budget deficit is also considering proposals to revamp the tax system, simplifying the corporate structure and possibly lowering corporate rates.

The study said that the shelters and loopholes in the current tax system rewarded companies that aggressively avoided taxes at the expense of those that did not. A quarter of the companies in the study had a federal tax bill of 35 percent of their profits, while a similar number had an effective rate of less than 10 percent.

“Companies that are paying their fair share ought to demand that the tax-dodging companies pay their fair share too,” said Robert S. McIntyre, the author of study. “So should the public, which is subsidizing them in terms of increased federal debt.”

The report is based on data gleaned from the companies’ regulatory filings, which can be different from their corporate tax returns. Even in a year when a company claims an overall tax benefit, it may pay some cash taxes while accumulating credits that can be redeemed in future years. But because most corporations do not release their tax returns, these corporate regulatory filings offer the best publicly available gauge of what companies pay and what strategies they use to reduce their tax bills.

Among the companies that the study said escaped a liability for all three years were Boeing and Ryder System, whose chief financial officer, Art A. Garcia, said the company had benefited from the additional depreciation intended to stimulate the economy.

Boeing officials said they, too, had paid  some federal taxes, but would not say how much. They said they had lowered their rate by taking advantage of tax breaks intended to encourage hiring. Chaz Bickers, a company spokesman, said Boeing hired 9,000 American workers this year

Also on the list was General Electric, which has come under close scrutiny since The New York Times reported earlier this year that the company had recorded $5.1 billion in American profits in 2010, but claimed a federal income tax benefit of $3.2 billion in its regulatory filing.

“The report is inaccurate and distorted,” said Kenneth Juarez, a G.E. spokesman. He said G.E. paid “billions of dollars in taxes in the United States over the last decade,” but would not say what part was federal income taxes.

The company that recorded the biggest reduction in taxes was Wells Fargo Bank, which is a large holding of Mr. Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway.  The banking company reported a total of $49 billion in profits in 2008 through 2010, yet received a tax benefit of $651 million. Ancel Martinez, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, said much of the tax savings came from write-offs obtained after its 2008 purchase of Wachovia, which incurred big losses during the financial crisis.

American corporations are paying a smaller share of taxes than in previous decades. They paid a total of $191 billion in federal income taxes in 2010, the Internal Revenue Service said, representing about 1.3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. That is down from about 6 percent during the 1950s (although some of the decline is because a smaller percentage of businesses now file as corporations).

Despite the decline in corporate tax rates since then, business advocates say the nation needs to lower its top rate further to encourage hiring and investment. Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, said that the United States system was not competitive because it taxed income earned around the world, instead of just in this country.

“There are still Bolsheviks who recognize that we need to bring the rates down,” he said.

But the Citizens for Tax Justice study found that two-thirds of  the American companies with significant profits overseas actually paid more in taxes to foreign governments than they did in the United States. Rather than lowering the corporate rate more, the study said, the federal government should end the subsidies and shelters that favor companies that game the system. 

“Closing the loopholes will have real benefits, including a fairer tax system, reduced federal budget deficits and more resources to improve our roads, bridges and school — things that are really important for economic development here in the United States," the report said.

By David Kocieniewski

Cain Not Able! By MAUREEN DOWD

We have the starchy guy — tall, handsome, intelligent and rich, with a baronial estate — who’s hard to warm up to. And we have the spontaneous guy, who’s charming and easy to warm up to — until it turns out that he has an unsavory pattern with young women and a suspect relationship with facts.

It’s the Republican primary. Or “Pride and Prejudice.” Take your pick.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it’s not the scandal that kills you; it’s the cover-up. Herman Cain has added a corollary: It’s not the cover-up that kills you; it’s the cascade of malarkey that spills out when you try to cover up the cover-up.

Sure, the dalliance with the grandfather, gospel singer, motivational speaker and self-made millionaire in the black cowboy hat was fun while it lasted, just as it was with Ross Perot, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and The-Rent-Is-Too-Damn-High dude.

You have to give props to the C.E.O. of a pizza company who dons a white choir robe at a press event to sing a Lennon parody, “Imagine There’s No Pizza.”

And you have to give Cain credit for breaking creative new ground in unconventional when he responds to a scandal about sexual-harassment complaints when he was chief of the National Restaurant Association in the ’90s by standing up at the National Press Club here and singing a gospel song about “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “Danny Boy.”

Yet despite the taunting tweet from the Times blogger Nate Silver the other day, before the sexual-harassment scandal broke, asking if there was “anyone out there who 1) gets paid to write about politics; 2) is so sure Cain can’t win that they promise to quit their job if he does,” Cain was never going to be the Republican nominee.

Even Barack Obama couldn’t be lucky enough to waltz past two wacky black conservatives, first Alan Keyes and then Cain.

The Herminator was just a raffish passing fancy, like Mr. Wickham, a place for Republicans to store their affections while they try to overcome their aversion to Mitt Romney’s Mr. Darcy.

Early in October, the improbable shooting-star candidate was preening with David Brody on the Christian Broadcasting Network, saying he “felt like Moses when God said ‘I want you to go into Egypt and lead my people out.’ ” He bragged that he was ready for the gotcha questions from the press, saying: “When they ask me who’s the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan, I’m going to say, ‘You know, I don’t know. Do you know?’ ”

Yet despite being aware that the scandal would surely pop at some point, and despite 10 days’ warning from Politico, which broke the news, Moses was flailing in the media Red Sea.

When Politico’s Jonathan Martin waited outside the CBS News bureau here to catch Cain after “Face the Nation” and ask him, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?,” the candidate’s lame riposte was: “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”

If your appeal lies in being refreshingly plain-spoken, you can’t turn into a verbal corn maze.

He has contradicted himself even more risibly on his memory of the harassment charges than he has on his abortion position.

At first, he said he wasn’t aware of the five-figure settlement to one woman; then, suddenly, he was aware. Instead of the meaning of “is,” Cain tried to parse the meaning of “settlement” versus “agreement.” He still claims he doesn’t remember the other five-figure settlement to another woman.

His memory may soon be jogged. A lawyer for one of the women, an Ivy League grad who works for the federal government and lives in suburban Maryland, said that she wants to be released from a confidentiality agreement on the settlement since Cain is going around disparaging the accusers.

Trade association boards have been known, especially in the flush ’90s, to lavish money on silly things: face-lifts for top executives and their wives and payoffs to executives’ cast-off mistresses.

But if Cain is right that the charges were “baseless” and he’s the victim of a “witch hunt,” why did the association pay the women anything? The Times reported on Wednesday that the payment to one of them was $35,000 — a year’s salary.

Ann Coulter has a point when she says that feminists rewrote their own rules on sexual harassment to support Bill Clinton. It is never right for any boss, especially the president of the United States, to mess with an intern, even if she’s the aggressor.

But Coulter falters when she charges that, like Clarence Thomas, Cain is the victim of a high-tech lynching, that “if you are a conservative black, they will believe the most horrible sexualized fantasies of these white women feminists.”

This isn’t an incendiary story about race. It is the most hackneyed story in Washington — another powerful man who crossed the line and then, when caught, tried to blame the women.