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--:-- Georgia Howe: Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Wednesday, March 15th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
--:-- John Bickley: The U.S. Senate voted to advance President Biden's pick for U.S. ambassador to India, former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The vote was 52 to 42, with seven Republicans joining the Democrats to help him get over the line.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Garcetti has faced accusations that he's not fit for the role due to his alleged actions or lack thereof regarding sexual harassment allegations in his L.A. office.
--:-- [Guest speaker identified as Naomi Seligman]
--:-- Naomi Seligman: We were in a work environment where sexual harassment and abuse was tolerated, enabled, and ubiquitous. It was a very hard, disappointing, and toxic environment where Mayor Garcetti enabled and tolerated and at times laughed about the abuse by his top aide and confidant, Rick Jacobs.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Unfortunately, the White House has put undue pressure on Democrats to vote for Eric Garcetti because Eric Garcetti has been a very, very loyal person to President Biden. And that's unfortunate because these senators that purport to support Me Too cannot just do it when it's politically expedient. They have to do it when it matters, even if it's your own political party.
--:-- [Guest speaker identified as Cabot Phillips]
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Moody's Investors Service, one of the three prime rating services, downgraded its rating for the entire banking system from stable to negative in response to the SVB banking crisis.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here with more is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. On Wednesday, Moody's warned it would downgrade a number of mid-sized banks, including Comerica, First Republic, UMB, and Western Alliance. That news comes after they downgraded Signature Bank earlier in the week.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Despite the Federal Reserve's efforts to protect banks and the Treasury Department promise that depositors would not lose their money, Moody declared, "We have changed to negative from stable our outlook on the U banking system to reflect the rapid deterioration in the operating environment following deposit runs at Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Bank, and Signature Bank, and the failures of SBB and SNY."
--:-- Georgia Howe: California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom cheered the federal government's decision to bail out Silicon Valley Bank's depositors without mentioning that he's one of them.
--:-- [Guest speaker identified as Tim Pierce]
--:-- Tim Pierce: The government's decision to cover all deposits was a surprise, as FDIC insurance is guaranteed to cover only up to $250,000 per account. It turns out Newsom's own wineries may stand to benefit from the FDIC's action. The California governor owns three wineries that banked with SVB that were at risk of losing money on deposits over the $250,000 threshold. And the governor's wife has ties to the bank as well.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Jennifer Siebel's charity, the California Partners Project, received a $100,000 donation from SVB in 2021. And SVB Capital's president sits on the charity's board of directors.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Newsom's team deflected questions over his ties to SVB, saying the governor's assets have been managed by a blind trust since 2018.
--:-- [Guest speaker identified as Tim Pierce]
--:-- Tim Pierce: And the city of Newark, New Jersey, admitted earlier this month that it was duped into becoming sister cities with a fake Hindu nation. Mayor Ras Baraka reportedly hosted representatives from the fictitious nation of Kailasa at Newark's City Hall for a cultural trade agreement, not realizing that the arrangement was a scam perpetrated by a notorious Indian conman named Swami Nithyananda.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Whose job was it to do a simple Google search, right? As you said, like, no one in City Hall, not one person did a Google search. So maybe we need a transformation of City Hall because not one person said, let me go on Google and figure out this was a fake city.
--:-- [Guest speaker identified as Tim Pierce]
--:-- Tim Pierce: And the city of Chicago has earned the dubious honor of being the fastest growing city in the U.S. for auto thefts. A new report indicates that auto thefts rose 55% in 2022 compared to the previous year. That's according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
--:-- Georgia Howe: States that saw the largest increase in vehicle thefts were Illinois, Washington, and New York.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Those are your drive home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com. And for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.
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