Everyone Predicted Blanche Would Protect Trump's IRS Deal; He Didn't Wait A Week

Attorney General Todd Blanche wasted no time. The day after his swearing-in, his Justice Department filed a brief backing Trump's private lawyers in their effort to overturn a federal judge's sanctions order — an order that had put Trump's IRS settlement in serious jeopardy.

That settlement, struck in May, gave Trump, his family members, and his businesses protection from IRS audits in exchange for dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the agency. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams threw the deal into question in July, sanctioning Trump's legal team for fraud on the court and issuing a gag order barring any reference to the settlement in official proceedings.

The move tracks almost exactly what Democrats predicted during Blanche's contentious confirmation fight. Sen. Cory Booker warned from the floor that Blanche would become Trump's sword against his adversaries and protection against scrutiny, while Sen. Adam Schiff argued Blanche would serve Trump's interests rather than the public's.

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Databricks wanted to raise $1B, investors wanted $15B. It settled on $5B at a $190B valuation.

AI is expensive, Ali Ghodsi tells TechCrunch. With so many investors wanting into his latest round, he said yes to more than planned.

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IBM partners with OpenAI to bolster enterprise AI push

IBM plans to train and certify tens of thousands of consultants on OpenAI's technologies as part of this deal.

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Northrop’s robot space mechanic is a new way to keep satellites at work longer

The Mission Robotic Vehicle is making the first attempt to attach a new thruster to an aging satellite.

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Amazon will train on Twitch streamers’ content by default, unless they opt out

"If this was opt-in, nobody would opt in," Twitch CPO Mike Minton said on a livestream responding to user feedback. "That's honestly the answer."

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Jeanine Pirro Is Up To Something Weird Amid Drama With Donald Trump

It hasn't even been two weeks since Jeanine Pirro effectively spit directly in Donald Trump's eyeball by dropping the federal vandalism charges he was championing against former Olympian David Hearn for picking up a chunk of paint out of his ridiculous Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, leaving the President positively enraged and her job hanging in Limbo.

Now, Jeanine Pirro is up to something weird.

According to a new report from the Washington Post, the former Fox News talking head turned United States attorney for the District of Columbia has suddenly begun to impanel a special grand jury in Washington, D.C., leading people to wonder just what in the Hell she's up to now.

Special grand juries are particularly rare and differ from a typical grand jury in that they can release a report that could potentially reveal critical information about the subject of an investigation, even if no one is actually brought to trial in the case they're overseeing.

The fact that she's pulling a special grand jury together at all is enough to raise eyebrows in and of itself. But to make matters even more bizarre, no one seems to know who Jeanine Pirro is targeting here.

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NIH Director Spanked For Blaming Biden For COVID Vax Misinformation

During a lengthy interview on Face the Nation, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was continually fact checked when he lied and said President Biden was at fault for eroding public trust on vaccines by the public at large during the COVID pandemic.

The debate took off when Bhattacharya discussed honoring Officer Rose, who was killed by a vaccine denier during a shooting at the CDC.

FTN host Margaret Brennan brought up the shooter's father, who said "he was brainwashed about the COVID vaccine and thought it was making him suicidal."

Bhattacharya wanted no part of that discussion. He started blaming Biden when Brennan jumped in.

BRENNAN: The Trump administration officials.

BHATTACHARYA: No, I mean, I mean like Biden. So Biden, uh, for instance,

BRENNAN: It began under the Trump administration.

BHATTACHARYA: The Biden administration censored me, right? They censored, they've sent out, uh, uh, direct attacks on people who disagreed on, on, on the COVID on, on sort of whether the COVID vaccine, uh, stopped him,

BRENNAN: RFK Jr called the COVID vaccine the deadliest vaccine ever made. That is misinformation and we're not being clear about that. And I think that is dangerous.

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