Perhaps really it’s because they can’t stand the sight of one another.  Or maybe the smell of treason and hypocrisy puts them off their hunger.  Or they’re concerned about their colleagues putting strychnine in their navy bean soup.

In a memo to his fellow members of the GOP, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, though, claims that he’s canceling the traditional in-person lunches for the Republican caucus, according to Politico.

Eight Republican Senators have tested positive for the coronavirus or for the virus’s antibodies.  Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler tested positive before a subsequent test came back negative.

In what seems to be a federal crime, the sons of lame duck president Donald Trump commandeered the Marine VH-3D Sea King helicopter designated Marine One when the President is on board to fly them from Camp David to Trump’s privately owned golf course in Virginia.

President Trump and sons @DonaldJTrumpJr @EricTrump flew Marine One from Camp David in Maryland to the family owned and Trump branded golf property in Virginia today. pic.twitter.com/YXOLPryDDP

— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) November 28, 2020

It’s illegal to use government property for personal use, particularly for people who have no government role whatsoever.

“Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismisses GOP Congressman Mike Kelly’s bid to throw out every mail ballot cast in the state – this was the case that led to Wednesday’s quickly stayed order barring further certification of state results” reports Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeremy Roebuck.

The US Supreme Court will hear a case on the legality of a Trump administration plan to exclude undocumented immigrants in the nation from the decadal Census count, which will have an impact on everything from Congressional representation to apportionment of federal funding.

As the Associated Press reports, the Trump plan contradicts how the Census count has been applied since the founding of the country, with the Constitution calling for it to be a counting of the “numbers” in each state, regardless of immigration status.

Trump has pushed the US Census Bureau to produce the tally by the end of the year even though the Census was bogged down by a lack of funding, a Trump-demanded shorter time schedule, and natural disasters such as wildfires on the West Coast and super-active hurricane season in the Gulf and Atlantic states.

“Godzilla vs. Kong, the forthcoming monster movie from Legendary Pictures, looks likely to be the latest big franchise movie to head to a streamer. Knowledgeable sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Netflix has made an offer of more than $200 million for the film while WarnerMedia has blocked the deal while preparing an offer of its own for its streamer, HBO Max. Legendary declined to comment while a Warner Bros. spokesperson said: ‘We plan to release Godzilla vs. Kong theatrically next year as scheduled.’ The Netflix offer undoubtedly had allure for Legendary, which financed 75 percent of the budget. As Netflix does not have a presence in China, the film could have played theatrically there.”

“The monsterverse movies, which are the cornerstone of Legendary’s slate, are big international players, especially in China: Just over a third of King of the Monsters’ $386 million global box office came from the movie’s China release. Skull Island grossed $168 million in China, about 30 percent of the movie’s $567 million gross. Godzilla vs. Kong, the fourth entry in the series, is slated for a May 21, 2021 opening but it is far from clear that U.S. theaters will be fully back in business by then and even if they are, the studios face a pile-up of major releases that were pushed due to the pandemic. Meanwhile Legendary is stuck with the cost of carrying an unreleased big-budget film. Though Warner Bros. has only a 25 percent stake in the movie, it controls the release. Decisions on the movie’s fate are being handled at the highest level, with WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar and Warner Bros. chairman Ann Sarnoff figuring out an offer for a streaming release on HBO Max that in theory also includes a theatrical component” – Hollywood Reporter.

New York Times: “The telephone call would have been laugh-out-loud ridiculous if it had not been so serious. When Tina Barton picked up, she found someone from President Trump’s campaign asking her to sign a letter raising doubts about the results of the election. The election that Ms. Barton as the Republican clerk of the small Michigan city of Rochester Hills had helped oversee. The election that she knew to be fair and accurate because she had helped make it so. The election that she had publicly defended amid threats that made her upgrade her home security system. ‘Do you know who you’re talking to right now?’ she asked the campaign official. Evidently not.”

“If the president hoped Republicans across the country would fall in line behind his false and farcical claims that the election was somehow rigged on a mammoth scale by a nefarious multinational conspiracy, he was in for a surprise. Republicans in Washington may have indulged Mr. Trump’s fantastical assertions, but at the state and local level, Republicans played a critical role in resisting the mounting pressure from their own party to overturn the vote after Mr. Trump fell behind on Nov. 3. The three weeks that followed tested American democracy and demonstrated that the two-century-old system is far more vulnerable to subversion than many had imagined even though the incumbent president lost by six million votes nationwide. But in the end, it stood firm against the most intense assault from an aggrieved president in the nation’s history because of a Republican city clerk in Michigan, a Republican secretary of state in Georgia, a Republican county supervisor in Arizona and Republican-appointed judges in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.”

The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally, and that case will be brought after the recount is over, on Monday or Tuesday. We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2020

“Child welfare organizations for months have felt the full weight of the coronavirus pandemic, navigating concerns about unreported abuse and ensuring their resources are available to at-risk children. But now, deeper into the outbreak, a new challenge is emerging that’s complicating their critical outreach efforts: the QAnon conspiracy theory. And it’s the behavior of those who follow the conspiracy theory – their supposed efforts to help abused children – that’s putting an increasing strain on the resources of actual child welfare groups.”

“The problem has become so severe that one such organization, Childhelp, says it had to set up an auto-response message on its crisis hotline to filter out QAnon callers after their name appeared in a QAnon meme. ‘If you have a hotline counselor who is taking time to speak to someone discussing a debunked conspiracy theory, there may be a child holding on the next line,’ Daphne Young, chief communications officer for Childhelp, told CNN. Beyond the calls to their hotline, Young explains that QAnon does ‘psychic damage to our work, which is the crying wolf phenomenon.’ ‘If you get people constantly crying about abuse day in and day out on social media that is not real – that is, everybody in Hollywood is part of a mass cabal drinking the blood of children, which is literally one of the conspiracy theories, drinking from their adrenal glands to stay young – this madness drowns out a child asking for help, a parent that needs resources,’ she said. ‘It drowns out anyone that’s a survivor who is trying to get in touch with us, and it’s not only ‘cries wolf,’ but I think that it also gives – in a strange way – it gives predators a little protection, because if everybody’s crying abuse, then maybe the guy down the street didn’t do it either'” – CNN.

Daily Beast: “Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he’d founded after panicking investors with his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of ‘Men in Black’ working for the United States government. Now he’s back, with what he has described as his own personal ‘army’ touting what he claims is proof that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump.”

“‘I’ve funded a team of hackers and cybersleuths, other people with odd skills,’ Byrne said in a Tuesday interview at One America News, where OAN personality Chanel Rion praised Byrne as the head of an ‘elite shadow cyber security team.’ As Trump’s chances of securing a second term dwindle down to nothing, Byrne has launched a media tour to promote his mysterious hacker team, appearing from an ‘undisclosed location’ on OAN, Newsmax, and a series of far-fringe YouTube shows associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.”

NBC San Antonio: “A man has been arrested for allegedly sending multiple emails threatening a local church, using political, racial and religious themes. William Edward Bender, 55, allegedly began sending these emails to the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit & Kids of the Kingdom Episcopal School this past June. The emails were not reported until November.”

“According to police, the pastor at the church told them Bender attended their services before and sent the emails to the pastor and another parishioner. An email from Nov. 8 allegedly details an interaction Bender had with another person, asking if ‘it was time to start killing people.’ Bender also allegedly wrote ‘I’m going to let those Democrats live for a while longer,’ in the email, according to court records. The church leadership was then notified, who said they feared Bender would provide an imminent threat. A few days later, Nov. 12, another email was sent to the church. This time, Bender allegedly said the following: ‘I think if Christ were to come back today, he’d spend a good bit of his time punching you ******* right in the face every time you made some self-serving and ******* virtue signaling statement, how many times would you need to get slapped before you stopped?’ Court records say it didn’t stop there, even threatening to allegedly light priests on fire. ‘You want priests getting covered in gasoline, and set on fire? Because this is how you get priest covered in gasoline, and set on fire,” the email reads, according to court records. Court records state this email included a link to when the Pope congratulated Joe Biden on his projected Presidential victory. Church leadership sent Bender a reply Nov. 12, telling him he was no longer allowed on church property.”

There is mounting evidence that the PA presidential election was compromised.  If this is the case, under Article II, Section 1.2 of the US Constitution, the state legislature has the sole authority to direct the manner of selecting delegates to the Electoral College. (1)

— Senator Doug Mastriano (@SenMastriano) November 28, 2020

Therefore, we are introducing a Resolution to exercise our obligation and authority to appoint delegates to the Electoral College. (3)

— Senator Doug Mastriano (@SenMastriano) November 28, 2020

“When Purdue Pharma agreed last month to plead guilty to criminal charges involving OxyContin, the Justice Department noted the role an unidentified consulting company had played in driving sales of the addictive painkiller even as public outrage grew over widespread overdoses. Documents released last week in a federal bankruptcy court in New York show that the adviser was McKinsey & Company, the world’s most prestigious consulting firm. The 160 pages include emails and slides revealing new details about McKinsey’s advice to the Sackler family, Purdue’s billionaire owners, and the firm’s now notorious plan to ‘turbocharge’ OxyContin sales at a time when opioid abuse had already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans” the New York Times reports.

“In a 2017 presentation, according to the records, which were filed in court on behalf of multiple state attorneys general, McKinsey laid out several options to shore up sales. One was to give Purdue’s distributors a rebate for every OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they sold. The presentation estimated how many customers of companies including CVS and Anthem might overdose. It projected that in 2019, for example, 2,484 CVS customers would either have an overdose or develop an opioid use disorder. A rebate of $14,810 per ‘event’ meant that Purdue would pay CVS $36.8 million that year. After Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against Purdue, Martin Elling, a leader for McKinsey’s North American pharmaceutical practice, wrote to another senior partner, Arnab Ghatak: ‘It probably makes sense to have a quick conversation with the risk committee to see if we should be doing anything’ other than ‘eliminating all our documents and emails. Suspect not but as things get tougher there someone might turn to us.’ Mr. Ghatak, who also advised Purdue, replied: ‘Thanks for the heads up. Will do.’ It is not known whether consultants at the firm went on to destroy any records.”

Axios: “Los Angeles County health officials announced a new three-week stay-at-home order on Friday, urging residents not to gather with people beyond their immediate household starting Monday. The new ‘safer-at-home’ order comes as the county – the most populous in the U.S. – confirmed 24 new deaths and 4,544 COVID-19 cases, with a five-day average of 4,751 new cases. County officials set a threshold for issuing additional measures to diminish the spread of the coronavirus starting Nov. 17, saying that if the five-day average hit 4,500 cases or if hospitalizations surpassed 2,000 daily, a new order would follow. As of Friday, there were 1,893 hospitalizations across the county area, and 24% are in intensive care.”

Bloomberg: “President Donald Trump is aware his fight to overturn the election is winding down, according to people familiar with the matter, but he isn’t ready to end the effort as he fundraises off the furor, directing much of the proceeds to his political action committee. Still, Trump appears to be staking out a path that will end with him departing the White House without ever formally conceding to Democrat Joe Biden. He’s continuing to insist that the result was ‘rigged’ as he plots his next steps. The president has salted a string of hints into recent remarks that he’s coming to grips with the reality Biden will be the next president.”

“On Thursday, taking questions from reporters for the first time since Election Day, Trump actually uttered the words ‘Biden administration.’ But during a 25-minute news conference, he still indignantly insisted that he actually won the election while also signaling he’d accept his fate as the first one-term president since George H. W. Bush. ‘Certainly I will, and you know that,’ Trump said when asked if he would leave the White House upon Biden’s inauguration. After an administration defined by Trump’s taste for showmanship, he’s kept an extraordinarily low profile since the election — golfing frequently, holding few public events, and until Thursday, avoiding his customary jousting with reporters. Trump’s circle of campaign advisers has shrunk to his most die-hard loyalists, chiefly Rudy Giuliani, said people familiar with the matter. His campaign apparatus has begun shutting down, and his campaign manager hasn’t held a press call in three weeks.”

🇺🇸🦅 pic.twitter.com/oCnWsS7ISh

— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) November 27, 2020

“In the twilight of his presidency, Donald Trump is discussing different ways to disrupt the impending Joe Biden era, chief among them by announcing another run against him. According to three people familiar with the conversations, the president, who refuses to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election as he clearly did, has not just talked to close advisers and confidants about a potential 2024 run to reclaim the White House but about the specifics of a campaign launch. The conversations have explored, among other things, how Trump could best time his announcement so as to keep the Republican Party behind him for the next four years. Two of these knowledgeable sources said the president has, in the past two weeks, even floated the idea of doing a 2024-related event during Biden’s inauguration week, possibly on Inauguration Day, if his legal effort to steal the 2020 election ultimately fails” the Daily Beast reports.

“The president and some of his closest associates have already started surveying prominent donors to get a sense of who would be with him, or perhaps against him, if he chose to run in the 2024 election. Some top Trump allies have told The Daily Beast that they are doing what they can to stay in the president’s good graces, calculating that doing so will help ensure a seat at the table and a future in the party—in the event he runs again.”

Reuters: “Iranian president Hassan Rouhani on Saturday accused Israel of killing the country’s top nuclear scientist, believed by the West to be the architect of Tehran’s secret military nuclear programme. Iran’s clerical and military rulers have threatened revenge for Friday’s killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, which could further increase tensions in the Middle East region and beyond.”

“‘Our people are wiser than to fall in the trap of the Zionist regime… Iran will surely respond to the martyrdom of our scientist at the proper time,’ Rouhani said in a televised cabinet meeting. ‘Once again, the evil hands of Global Arrogance and the Zionist mercenaries were stained with the blood of an Iranian son,’ Rouhani said in a statement earlier on Saturday, adding that Fakhrizadeh’s death will not slow down Iran’s nuclear work. Israel has declined to comment on the killing.”

A member of lame duck president Donald Trump’s Elite Special Force Team of legal squad thinks she can assign election tags on Twitter, a false belief just like her idea that the ESFT will overturn the November election.

Adding the flag for you, CBS. https://t.co/8ZIJHNzFBa pic.twitter.com/EvabOMJxUT

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) November 28, 2020