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THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

Susan Collins Insists She Doesn’t ‘Get Played’ Over SCOTUS Nominees – Proves She Just Was on Abortion

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U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) steadfastly defends her belief that she votes in a bipartisan manner, which at times she does.

But she also has disappointed Democrats on key issues, and appears about to again, one-hundred percent.

On the president’s nomination of to replace retiring Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy, Collins insists that President Trump has told her he will not ask any potential nominee how they would vote on Roe v. Wade, the precedent-setting case that ensures a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

But what everyone knows, and what Trump has admitted – actually, bragged about – is he will choose his nominee from a current list of 25 judges vetted by the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society is a far right group whose members included the late Antonin Scalia, and the entire current conservative wing of the Supreme Court: John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.

Every judge on the Federalist Society’s list has been vetted to ensure they would overturn Roe v. Wade. Asking them if they would would be about as necessary as buying a new car and asking if it goes in reverse. Overturning Roe is mandatory to be on the list. No need for Trump to ask.

So, back to Senator Collins.

“You’re going to get a lot of pressure from groups and individuals who support abortion rights,” CNN’s Jake Tapper warned Collins Sunday morning, asm Raw Story reported.

Tapper added that “one of the things that they think about you is that you get played by these judges and that ultimately, if you vote to support whoever President Trump nominates presuming the person comes from the list of 25, that one of your longest lasting legacy is likely going to be you vote to confirm a justice that ultimately tipped the balance of political power on court and voted to overturn [Roe v. Wade].”

Here she is proving that she will get played again – because she already was, by Trump himself, this week:

“The president told me in our meeting that he would not ask” a nominee if they would vote to overturn Roe, Collins told Tapper.

She goes on to state that “what he said as a candidate” might be different than “the legal advice” he’s received since –  as if Trump has a strong record of following his attorneys’ advice.

But it doesn’t matter if Trump asks the question or not. If they are on the list, they will vote to remove the right to choose an abortion.

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THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

WATCH: Maddow Breaks Down Mueller Request for 10 More Days

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MSNBC Rachel Maddow (screengrab)

The host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC explained on Thursday why it appears there will be major developments in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — in the next 10 days.

Maddow reported on a new filing by the special counsel concerning the case of former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The special counsel’s office had a Friday deadline to update the overseeing judge on Manafort’s cooperation with investigators following his guilty pleas.

“And here’s the part that makes the ominous music start up in your head and that makes us put the red banner on the bottom of the screen,” Maddow said. “In this new report they just filed, Mueller’s prosecutors have just asked the judge to please give them 10 days before they tell the judge what’s up with Manafort’s case right now.”

“Ten days? That is very strange,” she noted. “They say they’re not going to make tomorrow’s deadline, they would like a 10 day extension.”

“That is unusual,” she added.

“What’s going to happen in the next 10 days that will give the court a better picture of how helpful Paul Manafort has been?” she wondered. “Something’s going to happen between now and 10 days from now that will allow them to be of greater assistance in the court’s management of this matter?”

“What’s going to happen in the next 10 days?” she asked.

“There is a palpable sense right now that this is the — this is the time we have been expecting, this is the thing for which we have all been reading up on our history,” she concluded.

Watch:

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THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

Facebook Busts Dozens of Fake Accounts Hoping to Influence Mid-Terms

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Facebook is set to reveal that it has identified multiple bogus user accounts that have been tied to what it says is a political influence campaign leading up to the 2018 midterm elections.

The New York Times reports that Facebook has “discovered coordinated activity around issues like a sequel to last year’s deadly ‘Unite the Right’ white supremacist rally,” as well as “around #AbolishICE, a left-wing campaign on social media that seeks to end the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.”

The Times sources say that Facebook will publicly reveal more information about the alleged influence campaign on Tuesday afternoon, and the publication reports that it briefed Congress last week on its investigation into the accounts.

According to CNN, Facebook has already removed this network of accounts – one of which promoted a counter-demonstration to this summer’s planned “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Washington, D.C.

Although Facebook isn’t saying for certain that Russia is behind these bogus accounts, it does claim that it has “found evidence of some connections between these accounts” and similar accounts used by Russian trolls during the 2016 presidential election.

“We know that Russians and other bad actors are going to continue to try to abuse our platform – before the midterms, probably during the midterms, after the midterms, and around other events and elections,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, said on a conference call with reporters earlier this month. “We are continually looking for that type of activity, and as and when we find things, which we think is inevitable, we’ll notify law enforcement, and where we can, the public.”

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THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

Russian America News Roundup: Fascism At Its Finest

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Look, it’s a surreal time to be living in Trump’s Russian America. The least we can do is take a step back, inhale the ridiculousness and laugh – because climate change is fake news so what do we have to worry about anyway?

Without further ado, here’s Friday’s Trump-Russia News Roundup, courtesy of the Twitterverse.

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