swordfish

I think the "explanation" from Ms. Sykes is pretty racist....And addresses none of the facts in the story above ....She needs to stick to her comedy - She will have a larger, more diverse audience that way...... https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-politics/what-obamagate U.S. President Donald Trump's long-standing accusation of criminality against his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, has taken on a new name: Obamagate. In this new iteration being hotly promoted by Trump and his right-wing allies, Obama officials in the waning days of his administration conspired to entrap Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, as part of a larger plot to bring down the incoming president. The conspiracy theory took on new life after the Justice Department, in a dramatic about-face last week, moved to drop its criminal case against Flynn, saying the FBI was not justified in investigating him over his 2016 conversations with Russia's former ambassador to Washington. FILE - Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn leaves the federal courthouse in Washington, following a status hearing, July 10, 2018. As part of its reassessment of the Flynn case, the Justice Department released a deluge of records that shed light on previously unknown Obama administration deliberations over Flynn. That led Trump to claim that Flynn had been illegally targeted and that the decision to investigate him went all the way up to the previous president. "The biggest political crime in American history, by far!" Trump said in one of a blizzard of tweets and retweets referencing Obamagate on Sunday. In short order, the hashtag "Obamagate" went viral, giving an old conspiracy theory a new twist. Asked on Monday to describe Obama's alleged crime, Trump would only offer that "some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country." He predicted further disclosures in the coming weeks. Obama is a favorite and frequent target of Trump's attacks. Trump turned up the heat on his predecessor after Obama, in leaked comments to former officials in his administration, blasted the Justice Department's decision to let Flynn off the hook, saying the "rule of law is at risk." By advancing new allegations against the former president, Trump is also apparently seeking to implicate his likely opponent this fall, Obama's vice president, Joe Biden. Here is a primer on the controversy. Obamagate origins At its core, Obamagate is an old allegation given a new name. As early as March 2017, Trump alleged that Obama had illegally wiretapped the billionaire businessman at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential election campaign, comparing the alleged surveillance to the Nixon-era Watergate scandal. The following year, Trump claimed that the FBI had planted an informant inside his campaign, dubbing the alleged conspiracy "Spygate." FILE - Russia's ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, speaks with reporters in Washington, Jan. 13, 2017. The main allegation in Obamagate is that the former president directed the Flynn investigation, even though the FBI had no legitimate reason to probe the retired three-star general. Flynn, a one-time Democrat, served as the Obama administration's top military intelligence official before being forced out of the job and later aligning with Trump. Flynn was investigated twice in 2016 and 2017, first as part of the FBI's probe into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, and later over a series of conversations he had with Russia's then-ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, in which he counseled the Russians to refrain from retaliation against Obama administration sanctions — hinting that Trump would soften them once in office. Oval Office meeting Central to the Obamagate conspiracy theory is an Oval Office meeting between Obama and his national security team on Jan. 5, 2017, just 15 days before Trump took office. The meeting came the day after the FBI moved to formally close its investigation into Flynn's suspected ties to Russia before deciding to keep it open after learning about his intercepted calls to Kislyak. Top intelligence officials briefed Obama on their findings on Russian election meddling. At the end of the meeting, the president asked FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to stay behind. Joining them were Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Adviser Susan Rice. FILE - Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, June 28, 2016. As Yates recounted during a 2017 interview with special counsel Robert Mueller's team, Obama began by saying "he had learned of the information about Flynn" and his conversations with Kislyak regarding the sanctions on Russia. This was news to Yates, who as the Justice Department's No. 2 official oversaw the FBI but had not been told about it. As Comey later told the House Intelligence Committee, he alerted CIA Director John Brennan as soon as he learned about the Flynn calls. Brennan in turn briefed Obama. Yates and Rice later recounted what Obama said at the meeting. According to Yates, while Obama said he did not want details of the investigation, he asked "whether the White House should be treating Flynn differently" during the remaining days of the administration. FILE - FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 27, 2016. Yates did not recall Comey's response to the question. In an email to herself on Obama's last day in office, Rice memorialized that Obama reiterated at the meeting that "our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book." Yates and other former officials have defended the Flynn investigation. Yet, the fact that the White House meeting came the day after the FBI was preparing to close the Flynn investigation, and Obama was aware of Flynn's wiretapped calls to Kislyak, has led Trump, right-wing commentators and Flynn's lawyers to claim that the subsequent Flynn investigation over his calls to Kislyak constituted an anti-Trump conspiracy that reached the highest levels of the Obama administration. "So, the whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, (former national intelligence director James) Clapper, Brennan and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama," Sydney Powell, Flynn's attorney, told Fox News on Sunday. Recently declassified FBI records of the Flynn case that were turned over to Flynn's lawyers provided further fodder for conspiracy theory promoters. In one widely cited handwritten note, a top FBI official mused whether the goal of interviewing Flynn over his calls to the Russian ambassador was to "get him fired" or get him to lie. Unmasking of Flynn The Obamagate conspiracy theory feeds off another allegation: the politically motivated unmasking of Flynn's identity during the Trump transition period. U.S. intelligence analysts routinely "mask" the identity of U.S. persons whose communications are incidentally collected during intelligence-gathering on foreign officials. Flynn's conversations with Kislyak were apparently overheard during a routine interception of Kislyak's calls. Authorized national security officials seeking to understand the underlying intelligence can ask the National Security Agency to "unmask" an individual's identity. This is a common practice. But Trump and his allies have long accused former Obama administration officials of illegally unmasking Flynn's identity for political purposes. This week, Richard Grennell, a close Trump ally who serves as acting director of national intelligence, disclosed the names of more than a dozen Obama officials who requested the unmasking of Flynn's identity during the final weeks of the administration. The list includes a string of Obama administration officials Trump has long viewed as his enemies — Brennan, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, and Comey. Prospects for an investigation Since starting Obamagate, Trump has been pressing congressional Republicans to investigate Obama. That prospect is highly unlikely. "If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama," Trump tweeted on Thursday. "He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!" Trump tweeted on Thursday. FILE - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill, Feb. 25, 2020. But Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Trump confidant, says he is not interested in dragging Obama before Congress. "I don't think now's the time for me to do that," Graham told Politico. "I don't know if that's even possible." But Graham vowed to call in Trump administration officials as his committee investigates the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. For their part, Biden and other Democrats dismiss Obamagate as a blatant attempt by Trump to divert attention from growing criticism of his handling of the coronavirus crisis. A much better explanation than "because he's a black man, and still is" ........

Thought that was how you would see it, but didn't want to assume.......

Someone questioned (Gonzo) what "Obamagate" was........as if he had no clue. Here's a pretty good explanation of what is known and what is (IMHO) coming. https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/13/obamagate-isnt-a-conspiracy-theory-its-the-biggest-political-scandal-of-our-time/?fbclid=IwAR0fs-NzWxEh4G1DULStk8nqj7BuG2uuqR7N1_CnNx53zVl12fS6-4BFdI8#.XrvnC6QKyC8.facebook ‘Obamagate’ Isn’t A Conspiracy Theory, It’s The Biggest Political Scandal Of Our Time When former president Barack Obama told supporters last week that the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case against former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is a “threat to the rule of law,” he was relying wholly on the fiction, willingly propagated for years by a pliant media, that the Russia-Trump collusion probe launched by his administration was lawful and legitimate. But of course it wasn’t. A string of recently released documents have confirmed that the entire Russia-Trump investigation, which eventually entrapped Flynn and forced then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself, was an unprecedented abuse of power that amounted to organized effort by the Obama administration to nullify the results of the 2016 presidential election. It was in effect an attempted coup. If you haven’t picked that up from the news media, it’s not your fault. Instead of grappling with the implications of newly released details about what Obama officials were doing to undermine the incoming Trump administration during the transition, the mainstream media have fixated on Trump’s use of the term “Obamagate,” dismissing it as a conspiracy theory. A Brief History of the Flynn Case This is to be expected. For years now the media have done everything they can to push the Trump-Russia collusion hoax—even after a years-long special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller turned up nothing—using the complexity of the scheme to hide the greatest political scandal of our time in plain sight. A key aspect of that scheme was—and is—to make the case against Flynn appear legitimate. Flynn faced trumped-up charges that he misled FBI agents about conversations he had with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration. (As the incoming national security advisor, Flynn was doubtless having conversations with numerous heads of state and ambassadors during this time, so there was nothing unusual about him talking to the Russian ambassador.) The Obama administration already knew about the conversations with Kislyak because it had recordings of them thanks to a series of investigations it spun out of the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign. Crossfire Hurricane, launched in the summer of 2016, was itself a bogus investigation based on the Steele dossier—an entirely fraudulent document riddled with Russian disinformation and paid for by the Democratic Party.So why did the FBI want to interview Flynn ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January 2017? Top brass at the FBI weren’t exactly sure about their approach, but they knew they needed to get Flynn out of the way. As the bureau’s former head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap, recorded in his notes, “What is our goal? Truth/Admission, or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Apparently the Obama administration settled on trying to entrap him in a lie. The recent disclosure of an early January 2017 Oval Office meeting attended by Obama, vice president Joe Biden, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and FBI Director James Comey, confirms the administration’s plan to hide the Russia probe from the incoming Trump team—including Flynn. The idea was to use the Kislyak calls as a pretext to keep the Flynn investigation open, even though there was no reason to do so. After months of spying on him, the FBI had found nothing to indicate Flynn was conspiring with the Russians. As Rice wrote in an email to herself after the meeting, “President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.” The point was to keep the Flynn investigation open as a way for Obama holdovers like Comey, Yates, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to continue the Russia-Trump collusion probe even after Trump took office—and keep Flynn, Trump’s national security advisor, out of the loop. Since there was no reason to keep investigating Flynn, the Obama administration invented one: the preposterous notion that he intentionally misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Kislyak and then lied about it to the FBI. There’s no evidence this happened, but even if there were it wouldn’t matter. As the Justice Department explained in its decision to drop the Flynn case, the investigation of Flynn was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation.” Later, top FBI and Justice Department officials gave the House Intelligence Committee different answers about why they were pursuing Flynn. Comey, McCabe, Yates, and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord all gave conflicting testimony about the “primary purpose” of the FBI’s interview with Flynn, ranging from the outlandish notion that he violated the Logan Act—a constitutionally dubious 1799 law forbidding unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments—to the concocted charge that he lied to the FBI, which even the agents that conducted the interview with him didn’t believe. Here’s Why Americans Need to Understand the Flynn Case The Flynn case is just one piece of a much larger story about how the Obama administration—with the full knowledge and support of both Obama and Biden—targeted incoming Trump officials in a failed attempt to cripple the new administration with allegations it had colluded with Moscow. The complexity of their scheme, and the efforts to hide it and mislead the American people, are frustrating. The cast of characters—from high-ranking Obama administration officials to relative nobodies loosely associated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign—is long, as is the timeline of events. Details have come out slowly, in fits and starts, over the course of years. Following all the leaks and declassified transcripts and congressional hearings requires constant vigilance, and if you don’t keep up with it you can easily lose the thread. That all works to the advantage of those who perpetrated this hoax, because it’s easy to get overwhelmed and tune it all out, or simply accept the corporate media’s deceptive reporting. But the ongoing revelations about the FBI’s targeting of Flynn can’t be ignored. They demand a full accounting. If ever there was a threat to the rule of law, it was the Obama administration’s abuse of power and its weaponization of intelligence agencies in an attempt to take down Trump. However convoluted it might seem, pay attention to it. It’s the biggest political scandal of our time.

Atta Boy!! So now you recognize that figure and it makes sense to you? EVERYONE - except for 99.95% of us........according to math......WILL DIE FROM SOMETHING OTHER THAN CORONAVIRUS!! (FIFY)

EVERYONE - except for 99.95% of us........according to math......

MUDA - WE CAN'T TALK ABOUT THIS CAN WE? THERE'S A FREAKIN' PANDEMIC - AND PEOPLE ARE GOING OUT TO EAT AGAIN!!!! Seriously, if it didn't happen within the confines of the school property or during a scholastic sponsored event, the school has nothing to do with this. Also - what discipline will the school be dishing out?

I know a few therapists you can call for that condition Gonzo.

Honestly, (I mean if you were being honest about it) He shouldn't need to......

Be wise DannE.......don't take the bait.........

As it should be........Your not supposed to do that Mr. Burr...... BUT Coronavirus - 99.95% of the US won't be dead because of it......

Who cares? 99.95% chance you or I WON"T get this virus. Period. But we shut the country down anyway. From a friend of mine in PA: I would like to present some facts that relate to our current situation with the coronavirus and the lock down. Some people label others as selfish to want to go back to work. Let me preface what I am about to say with this. Your perception is your reality. How we perceive something forms our opinions and beliefs. What we perceive is true to us. What situation we are in molds our perception/truth! We know who is venerable and those persons should protect themselves by quarantining. If they don’t feel safe to go out to a restaurant, sports activity, or anywhere else they shouldn’t. Those who aren’t venerable should be able to go to work or what wherever they feel safe doing. Apparently, there are many people who didn’t pay attention when they had math in high school. Let me show you how percentages work. It isn’t that hard. There are 328,200,000 persons living in the USA. That is Three Hundred twenty-eight million two hundred thousand. That represents 100%. To figure 10% (.10) you drop 1 zero or 32,820,000. That is Thirty-two million eight hundred twenty thousand. To figure 1% (.01) you drop 2 zeros or 3,282,000. That is Three million two hundred eighty-two thousand. To figure 1 tenth of 1% (.001) you drop 3 zeros or 328,200. That is Three hundred twenty-eight thousand two hundred. To figure 5 thousandth of 1% you multiply the number by .0005 to get 164,100. That is One hundred sixty-four thousand one hundred. So, if we end up having 164,100 persons die from the virus that is less than 5 thousandth of 1% or (.0005). I am not making lite of those persons dying however we have nearly 2 million persons dying every year from something. Now if I gave you the odds of 99.95% of surviving a situation would you be afraid of those odds and stay at home sheltering? If I told you that you had a 99.95% chance of winning the lottery would you play it? If I told you that you had a 99.95% chance of winning at roulette by playing number 13 would you play it? There are over 30 million people whose lives are forever changed by the closing and over reacting (my opinion) to this virus. Much more than the what the virus will affect. Those 30 Million Americans are out of work and suffering because of a little more than the common flu (my opinion) Many more people are going to die because of being out of work or afraid to go out and have regular Dr. visits because of the hype of this virus. Many more suicides, child abuse, spousal abuse and many more things far more than the what the virus is going to harm. We should be quarantining those that are sick, not those who are healthy (my opinion) How many Americans went to the grocery store since the lock down? How many Americans went to a Lowes, Home Depot or other big box store since the lock down? How many Americans went to other “essential business” since the lock down? My opinion is that EVERY business essential! I would say the vast majority of us has done the above, if anyone has a different opinion, I would like to hear it and have you explain your position. Now answer this question, how is going to one of the above business less dangerous to passing on the virus than let’s say going to purchase a car, an RV, furniture. How about playing a round of golf in the wide open, visiting a park. Why is being around someone while you shop for groceries or building supplies different from being around someone to get your hair cut. And by the way, how does Governor Wolf keep his hair from growing over the passed 9 weeks, I would like to know because my hair has grown over 2 inches since then and I need a haircut really bad. How does going down the isle of the grocery store in a certain direction prevent the spread of the virus. Where is the commonsense. There isn’t any? How many of you know how many people have died from health-related issues in the USA each year? Most people only know what is told to them from the so called “News Media”. Here are some statistics from the CDC website for the most recent years total of 2016. Heart Disease 635,260 Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 598,038 Chronic lower respiratory diseases 154,596 Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke related) 142,142 Alzheimer disease 116,103 Diabetes mellitus 80,058 Influenza & pneumonia 51,537 Nephritis (kidney disease) 50,046 Suicide 44,965 Coronavirus Covid-19 77,840 (this number has been artificially increased by allowing Covid-19 to be listed, without proof, that it was the actual cause of death when many of these are actually flu, pneumonia, heart disease, diabetes and other health issues) It is a huge difference of dying with the virus and dying from the virus. We are now counting all those that are dying with the virus as having died from the virus and that is a huge difference. I feel you will see the number of Influenza & pneumonia, heat disease numbers for 2020 will be lower when the final numbers are calculated by the CDC because of listing those who died from those conditions were actually listed as Coronavirus Covid-19. There is only one person who knows when each of us is going to meet our maker and that is GOD, he is in control, not our governors or the government. Our constitution was designed to protect us from what the government is doing to us at this very moment. Wake up and let’s take our freedom back!

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/federal-judge-orders-arguments-on-whether-michael-flynn-should-be-jailed-for-perjury/ Federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan late Wednesday issued a stunning ruling in the prosecution of Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump‘s former National Security Advisor. The two-pronged order (1) appoints a former federal judge to argue against dismissing the case; and (2)considers holding Flynn in criminal contempt for perjury. “Upon consideration of the entire record in this case, it is hereby ORDERED that the Court exercises its inherent authority to appoint The Honorable John Gleeson (Ret.) as amicus curiae to present arguments in opposition to the government’s Motion to Dismiss,” the judge wrote. “t is further ORDERED that amicus curiae shall address whether the Court should issue an Order to Show Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 401, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 42, the Court’s inherent authority, and any other applicable statutes, rules, or controlling law.” Judging by the order, Sullivan is not pleased that Flynn took up the court’s time by pleading guilty, firing his lawyers, hiring new lawyers, and moving to withdraw his guilty plea. As if that wasn’t enough, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss its case against Flynn. Gleeson, a Bill Clinton nominee to a federal judgeship in the Eastern District of New York, was previously an Assistant United States Attorney for the same district. As a prosecutor, Gleeson secured a conviction against mobster John Gotti. He also prosecuted the so-called “Wolf of Wall Street,” Jordan Belfort. He retired as a judge to pursue a career in private practice. Seriously? The FBI basically forces the guy to plead guilty to lying to them, now the judge is hinting at perjury because he did it. 🤬

From a friend of mine in PA: I would like to present some facts that relate to our current situation with the coronavirus and the lock down. Some people label others as selfish to want to go back to work. Let me preface what I am about to say with this. Your perception is your reality. How we perceive something forms our opinions and beliefs. What we perceive is true to us. What situation we are in molds our perception/truth! We know who is venerable and those persons should protect themselves by quarantining. If they don’t feel safe to go out to a restaurant, sports activity, or anywhere else they shouldn’t. Those who aren’t venerable should be able to go to work or what wherever they feel safe doing. Apparently, there are many people who didn’t pay attention when they had math in high school. Let me show you how percentages work. It isn’t that hard. There are 328,200,000 persons living in the USA. That is Three Hundred twenty-eight million two hundred thousand. That represents 100%. To figure 10% (.10) you drop 1 zero or 32,820,000. That is Thirty-two million eight hundred twenty thousand. To figure 1% (.01) you drop 2 zeros or 3,282,000. That is Three million two hundred eighty-two thousand. To figure 1 tenth of 1% (.001) you drop 3 zeros or 328,200. That is Three hundred twenty-eight thousand two hundred. To figure 5 thousandth of 1% you multiply the number by .0005 to get 164,100. That is One hundred sixty-four thousand one hundred. So, if we end up having 164,100 persons die from the virus that is less than 5 thousandth of 1% or (.0005). I am not making lite of those persons dying however we have nearly 2 million persons dying every year from something. Now if I gave you the odds of 99.95% of surviving a situation would you be afraid of those odds and stay at home sheltering? If I told you that you had a 99.95% chance of winning the lottery would you play it? If I told you that you had a 99.95% chance of winning at roulette by playing number 13 would you play it? There are over 30 million people whose lives are forever changed by the closing and over reacting (my opinion) to this virus. Much more than the what the virus will affect. Those 30 Million Americans are out of work and suffering because of a little more than the common flu (my opinion) Many more people are going to die because of being out of work or afraid to go out and have regular Dr. visits because of the hype of this virus. Many more suicides, child abuse, spousal abuse and many more things far more than the what the virus is going to harm. We should be quarantining those that are sick, not those who are healthy (my opinion) How many Americans went to the grocery store since the lock down? How many Americans went to a Lowes, Home Depot or other big box store since the lock down? How many Americans went to other “essential business” since the lock down? My opinion is that EVERY business essential! I would say the vast majority of us has done the above, if anyone has a different opinion, I would like to hear it and have you explain your position. Now answer this question, how is going to one of the above business less dangerous to passing on the virus than let’s say going to purchase a car, an RV, furniture. How about playing a round of golf in the wide open, visiting a park. Why is being around someone while you shop for groceries or building supplies different from being around someone to get your hair cut. And by the way, how does Governor Wolf keep his hair from growing over the passed 9 weeks, I would like to know because my hair has grown over 2 inches since then and I need a haircut really bad. How does going down the isle of the grocery store in a certain direction prevent the spread of the virus. Where is the commonsense. There isn’t any? How many of you know how many people have died from health-related issues in the USA each year? Most people only know what is told to them from the so called “News Media”. Here are some statistics from the CDC website for the most recent years total of 2016. Heart Disease 635,260 Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 598,038 Chronic lower respiratory diseases 154,596 Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke related) 142,142 Alzheimer disease 116,103 Diabetes mellitus 80,058 Influenza & pneumonia 51,537 Nephritis (kidney disease) 50,046 Suicide 44,965 Coronavirus Covid-19 77,840 (this number has been artificially increased by allowing Covid-19 to be listed, without proof, that it was the actual cause of death when many of these are actually flu, pneumonia, heart disease, diabetes and other health issues) It is a huge difference of dying with the virus and dying from the virus. We are now counting all those that are dying with the virus as having died from the virus and that is a huge difference. I feel you will see the number of Influenza & pneumonia, heat disease numbers for 2020 will be lower when the final numbers are calculated by the CDC because of listing those who died from those conditions were actually listed as Coronavirus Covid-19. There is only one person who knows when each of us is going to meet our maker and that is GOD, he is in control, not our governors or the government. Our constitution was designed to protect us from what the government is doing to us at this very moment. Wake up and let’s take our freedom back!

WTF does the Vietnam Conflict/Indochina War/Gulf of Tonkin Incident/Tet Offensive (Otherwise known as the Vietnam War......) and whether anyone served there, have to do with the Coronavirus debate going on here ? (Besides a typical "my penis is larger than yours" match)....... https://news.trust.org/item/20200513160413-xtse3 By David Alire Garcia and P.J. Huffstutter MEXICO CITY/CHICAGO, May 13 (Reuters) - More Mexican steaks and other beef cuts are headed north of the border after the coronavirus outbreak has hobbled U.S. meat processing plants, potentially offsetting fears of shortages affecting businesses from fast-food chains to grocery stores but angering American ranchers. The Mexican industry chalks up the export growth to new safety measures adopted by plants, as well as relatively smaller-scale operations that have so far kept infections at bay and business humming. In the United States, there has been a surge of cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. That has crimped domestic supply, leading to unease among U.S. consumers and even warnings from leading fast-food burger chains like Wendy's that popular menu items may soon be discontinued. In a recipe for popular discontent, those shortages could cause meat supplies to fall by nearly a third by the end of this month, while prices jump by around 20%. Mexican beef supplies were already a growing part of U.S. sales prior to the crisis, and they are set for even stronger double-digit growth in 2020, said Juan Ley, president of Mexico's main cattle growers association. Leading an industry that spans 20 government-accredited beef-exporting companies including Mexican heavyweights like SuKarne, Ley predicts up to 12% growth in U.S. exports this year, compared with last year's volume. Sales to U.S. buyers have already jumped 10% this month, he said, and he expects the same in June. From the beginning of this year through the first week of May, Mexican beef exports to its northern neighbor totaled nearly 87,000 tonnes, up roughly 8,000 tonnes compared with the same period last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2019, Mexico was the third-biggest foreign beef supplier to the United States, behind Australia and Canada, with exports reaching 232,000 tonnes. The United States accounted for about 86% of total Mexican beef exports, worth $1.3 billion. "I think we're going to leap past Canada this year," added Ley. Mexico boasts nearly 30 federally regulated processing plants of varying sizes, able to process anywhere from 600 to 1,800 cows in an eight-hour shift, according to industry data. Almost all of them operate only one shift per day, and vary in size from just 20 workers to several hundred. In contrast, in the United States just four major beef-packing companies – Cargill Inc, Tyson Foods Inc , JBS and National Beef Packing – control more than 80% of the business. While much of the beef imported into the United States is used to make hamburgers, most of the beef imported from Mexico is higher-end cuts that end up in grocery stores, said Derrell Peel, a livestock marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University. LEANER INDUSTRY The shift toward foreign supplies has angered many U.S. ranchers, who argue the consolidation of the meatpacking sector and shuttering of processing plants is limiting access to their own marketplace. "There are about a half-million cattle here that cannot get to slaughter," said Bill Bullard, chief executive officer of the Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America. "I know guys who have had cattle to sell for five weeks, and they can't even get a bid," he said. Ley, head of Mexico's beef exporters association, is sensitive to the complaints. However, he noted Mexico also imports U.S. cuts in what he describes as a "very complementary" trade that he said was up 6% this year. Mexican producers' near-term gains are made possible by meatpacking plants that have not experienced the level of coronavirus outbreaks as their American counterparts. To date, no more than 20 processing plant workers across the country have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the cattle growers association, and no plants have been closed. In the United States, Smithfield Foods, owned by China's WH Group Ltd, as well as JBS and Tyson Foods have since April temporarily shut more than a dozen U.S. plants after thousands of workers contracted the virus. The Mexican government's tally of confirmed coronavirus infections, currently at more than 38,000 cases, does not include industry-specific totals. Jose Luis Ordoñez, a meatpacking plant manager just outside the city of Culiacan near Mexico's Pacific Coast, points to a series of new measures his 350 workers have adopted since the crisis struck in March. Buses used to transport workers to the plant are now sanitized four times daily, up from just once, and run double the daily routes they used to in an effort to boost social distancing among employees. Workers now clock in at plants using spaced-out painted footprints, which are also in locker rooms and cafeterias. In cutting rooms, new plastic barriers have been erected. The body temperatures of workers are also checked three times a day. "All this has helped a lot be able to achieve the results we have until now," said Ordoñez, whose plant sells packaged meats under the Santara brand. Since March, three of his plant's workers who had presented symptoms of COVID-19 were given tests. "All negative," he said. (Reporting by David Alire Garcia in Mexico City and P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago Additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Matthew Lewis)

So who is overtly and proudly protesting the National Anthem today?