The Cats Roundtable Memorial Day Weekend Special | 05-24-26

great American. You're a classic example of the people who built this country. He's got plenty of ideas on how to bring change. Great American, a great New Yorker. This is the Cats Roundtable on Talk Radio 77 W.A.B.C. Now, here's John Katsamatidis. Everywhere. Sunday, Memorial Day weekend. Cats Roundtable. Well, we have a special third hour. We have Steve Kates. What's going off in the skies? Peter Agner. A special historian for Manhattan or New York City. A lot of things happen. Randy Daniels, the former Secretary of State of New York. Well, he's traveled to China, and I want to know what he thinks is going on. Brianna Lyman, and we have Nicole Parker, former FBI agent, Governor David Patterson from New York, and he has a few things to say about things that are going on in New York. And let's start off with... General David Petraeus, the four-star general, CIA director, and what he thinks about what's going on in the world as far as war is concerned.

Memorial Day weekend. And with us today is General David Petraise, a four-star general, CIA director. He keeps his ears close to the ground. And General Memorial Day weekend, any thoughts on some of the friends we've lost? Well, of course, and you've identified the reason for it. This is not Veterans Day. This is not thank you for your service to all those who served. This is specifically about... Those who gave what President Lincoln described as the last full measure of devotion to our country, who lost their lives in the service of our country in uniform. It's a very special day. It has a great deal of meaning, in particular for those of us who are privileged to serve downrange and remember not just numbers, but faces and names. And I hope that... All Americans will understand the meaning of this day, not confuse it with Veterans Day, but remember those that Gold Star families, those who lost a son or daughter in the service of our country. And I remember my friends that I lost in Vietnam, and, you know, I remember playing with them in the old neighborhood, and I can't. phantom to believe to think that they never came home well general we we have the war has changed it's no longer the war we used to know uh in world war two or vietnam uh now it's something that i don't know if anybody uh uh knew about 10 years ago, drones. And I think the next step is even going to be like the movie Terminator 1 robots. What say you about the future of combat? Well, first, that it is on display, but not in the Gulf, rather in Ukraine. Where to give the listeners an idea, Ukraine now is using over 10,000 drones. on every single day. Some are short-range, first-person view at suicide drones, others are longer-range surveillance. There's bomber drones. There's drones of every type. There's logistics drones. And then there are missiles and rockets and so forth. They're even taking the war to Moscow now, which has not been seen before. Moscow and St. Petersburg, the home of the elites of Russia, really haven't felt... this war. It's not their sons and daughters that are going off. It's those in the rural areas who are being recruited by huge bonuses. And then if they lose their lives, families get very large remittances for that. So this is, again, the future of war right now, which is all unmanned systems all the time. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles can't survive on this battlefield. Aircraft can't go near the front lines. You can't even drive a vehicle to the front lines anymore.

They actually have remotely driven vehicles. And the death zones, it's turned, is about 35 kilometers on either side of the front line of troops. And even the troops aren't in fighting positions. You can't fight from where they are, because if you can see out and poke a rifle out and a drone could come in, there actually should be turned survivability positions. They're dug deep underground. And they'll have anywhere from six state soldiers in there. And they're there for two months as these drones overhead are carrying out the warfare. As the Russians try to advance, they're spotted almost immediately in this 35 kilometer area where they are. And once you're seen, you're going to be attacked relentlessly. And it's a question of whether you get into real cover. or if you're going to be taken out by a suicide attack drone. And about 60% of all drones under the Ukrainian side now have fiber optic cable trailing behind them because that means that the command and control can't be jammed, something which the Russians are very good at, electronic warfare, jamming, spoofing, and other ways of interdicting and erupting the command and control line. Keep in mind that the Ukrainians took 35% of the Russian Black Sea fleet out without a Navy. It was aerial drones that find the ships, maritime drones that sink them, and that entire fleet is now tied up as far from Ukraine as they can possibly get. This really is revolutionary in a way that we haven't seen anything in our lifetimes before. General Petraeus, enjoy the rest of this weekend. Think about all our friends that we lost, and let's catch up again real soon. Absolutely, John. Thanks so much. The Cats Roundtable. Well, it's Memorial Day weekend. History? Well, America has history, well, a few hundred years. Unlike Rome, thousands of years, unlike Egypt, tens of thousands of years. Well, with us today is Peter Agder, and he is the director of the Gotham Center for New York City history. Does that mean you know where all the bodies are from the 16th century on? I know we're a bunch of them are, yeah. Well, tell us about what you do and give us some interesting. It's Memorial Day weekend. Give us some interesting stories about things that will, I guess, make people scratch their heads. Well, speaking of Memorial Day and Bodies, one thing I'll say at the outset, so I run the only academic center to vote to New York City history. New York, because of its scale, its population has probably contributed more people to more of America's wars than any other city by a long shot. The main reason we should be thinking about New York City this Memorial Day is that we are just a few weeks out from the anniversary of the nation's founding, really, 1776. And, you know, for a long time, still today, we think of Boston, we think of Philadelphia. We don't think of New York when we think of the revolution. And that is 100% wrong.

New York is the city at the center of that story. And speaking of bodies, the vast majority of people who fought and died for this country's creation are buried here in New York City. Those are the victims of the American Revolution who died as POWs under the Brent at two and a half times the number of the battlefield debt. Now, I remember when I never knew growing up that Federal Hall existed. I never knew it was the first capital of the United States of America. And about 10, 15 years ago, we had some kind of event, and Newt Gingrich came, the former speaker. We had a wonderful event recognizing the Federal Hall was the first capital of the United States of America, and I made everybody get up and saying God bless America. I just should. I mean, it's wild just how utterly ignorant. I mean, the whole country, but especially New Yorkers are about this history. You know, we are always focused on tomorrow here in the city, which means that we forget just how much of the country's history is right here in the five boroughs. You know, I joke that it's the only place where you could imagine a building as beautiful and expensive as the old plantation could be torn down. Federal Hall was there now. It's not the original iteration, but that was the Capitol building, the first Capitol buildings, where Washington's sworn in as the first president when New York is the first capital for five years. All the major debate about the Constitution, that all happens here. All those famous founding fathers that you were taught about, they all walk these streets. Wow. You know, you go to Europe, you go to Rome. and you know you go London and you go to Paris and and people there have histories for thousands of years and it's strange and it's strange that you know here in New York or here in the United States it's only a couple hundred years old now give us a couple of examples of things when you learned about them that you said wow I didn't know that Well, I mean, for the, you know, the war literally begins and ends in New York, right? So the biggest invasion, the biggest battle of the war and the formal, like the first major battle of the war is here in New York in the summer of 76. The British sent 32,000 soldiers on 421 vessels into the harbor at a time when the population of New York proper, which is basically just everything below city hallpark, is 25,000. The famous quote from the period is it looked like all of London was the slope. You know, that remains the biggest battle of the war, and it almost ended several times just weeks after the Declaration of Independence right here in New York City. I don't think people know that. I think people also don't know, for example, that the first bloodshed in the American Revolution happens here in New York City. It's a thing called the Battle of Golden Hill. People, everybody knows about the Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre happens weeks later. It's the protest that's held in solidarity.

with this, you know, the first exchange of weapons between British soldiers and American colonials. It's a miracle that no one died, and mostly, I think, because no one died, it didn't get into the history books. But, you know, we should remember that history. There's no plaque there either. It's literally an alleyway today, youth for garbage. And I remember, I'm going to tell you, when I went to PS192 and 137 Street, opposite City College and Lewison Stadium, I remember a lot of things, and they taught me. They taught me about New York history. And I never knew that Henry Hudson went up the Hudson River. I mean, it wasn't called the Hudson River at that time in the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. And it was, you know, and later on in life, when a friend of mine loaned me his speedboat and I went up to Hudson, I was thinking about that. That Henry Hudson, 400, well, he did it in, oh, my God, and in 1608, I'm not sure if I'm right, but that's 400 years, 400 years before that. 400 years in the overall history of the world is not a lot. It's not a lot, but, you know, for the British, the loss of the American colonies, which were by far their biggest part of their empire, it wasn't such a big deal. For the British, you know, they go on to create, like, you know, they already were the biggest empire at that time, but it's their, quote, first global empire. But, you know, by a century later, they've got control of 55 countries. And that's just kind of their formal territorial control. What was the reputation the British had? They ruled the seven seas. Exactly. And now, I understand from President Trump that was on a couple weeks ago, and he said that the British had 50 ships, and now they're down to 17? Yeah. They only have, is it one aircraft carrier? Well, I mean, World War I and World War II just knocked them out, right? And the rise of the United States, as well as, you know, other powers like the Japanese and the Germans, just diminished that. They diminish the scope and might of the British Empire. Yep. Well, Peter, thank you so much. Let's do it again real soon. Maybe we do it on Fourth of July. Let's do it. Thank you so much.

Thank you for listening to the Cats Roundtable. We'll be right back, right after this break. Telling it like it is, giving you both sides of the story with common sense thinking. It's the Cats Roundtable. Welcome back to the Cats Roundtable. Memorial Day. What the heck is going on in the world? Well, a good friend, Randy Daniels, an American businessman, but it was also Secretary of the State of New York in the early 2000s. And Randy, you've been all over the world, you've been to Iran, you've been to China, and you're working on trade relations. Give us a sample of what you're talking about and what you're doing, and give us the pulse of what's going on. Well, having just returned from China about 10 days ago, and that was my 35th trip to China in the last 20 years. So it is a country I've come to know well. And like every other nation in the world today, they are feeling the economic impact of the crisis in the Persian Gulf, the escalation and fuel prices has dramatically hit their economy, while their export economy is booming. Quite frankly, it has expanded. There has been a significant pullback in the domestic economy. in Iran, and manufacturing in particular, especially the mid-sized manufacturers, are seeing steep declines not only in business, but also dramatic increases in costs largely driven by energy. Now, the way the Chinese, I think, deal with these crises is they always double down on building infrastructure whenever there's a recession. or whether there's economic shock or when they want to do stimulus. Is it that way they have no unemployment? They make sure somebody's always working? Well, they try to. As you know, full employment is an illusion. It's very, very hard to achieve. And quite frankly, most people think 3% unemployment is full employment. But the reality is that that... The consumers in China have pulled back on their expenditures. You know, they're spending money on, like, personal items and electronic goods, but they're delaying, for example, home buying. And this is in a country where 90% of the people in China own their own home. But there has been tremendous overbuilding in the real estate sector over the last decade and probably maybe 5 to 6 million zombie apartments that are unoccupied. But in the major centers like Shanghai and Beijing, people are delaying buying their first home. That's new in China. That is, you know, if we had six million apartments in the United States, there were nobody living in them, we would have a serious moment of scratching our head.

Absolutely, but that's a difference between a mixed communist kind of capitalist system and a pure capitalist system, because these apartments, though they were built by private developers, they were financed by, you know, state banks. in essence. And the overbuilding has caused many of those financial institutions to either collapse or have to reorganize and many of the major developers. have had to go through significant reorganization, many on the verge of bankruptcy, because of this overdevelopment that we have seen over the past decade. And it's probably going to take another decade to really absorb it because most of this surplus housing is in tertiary markets, the second-tier cities, not their big ones. Understood. And so what happens in these, I'm just curious, what happens in these apartments? Is somebody going to occupy them eventually or they're just going to tear them down? No, I think they will be occupied eventually, but it's going to take a long time to absorb the backlog, because many of the apartments are in places where it's not the first choice of people to live. Now, the world is having a problem, a crisis in not having enough babies. You know, with 1.4 billion people in China, are they part of the same crisis, or have they given the order to go out and have more babies? Well, the Chinese government has tried to incentivize larger families. I mean, the one-child policy was abandoned. almost 20 years ago. And I happened to have a friend who I just saw there, who was expecting her second baby this month. So they are encouraging the growth of the population, because quite frankly, at 1.4 billion, it has stalled. And India actually has passed China when it comes to population. But the problem is more economic and cultural, because once again, because people are delaying the purchase of housing, many of them also are delaying marriage. And this has caused some consternation, you know, in the government and their efforts to try to incentivize marriage and further incentivize starting families. Now, before we run out of time, because we're running close on time, I want to know, were you there when President Trump was there, and are we going to make a deal with China?

Your opinion. I was there the week before he was there. And look, the United States and China have a lot of mutual interests that are not just trade. You know, it's intellectual property. It's a lot of things. There will be negotiations. And this relationship, which is essential to the world, is going to proceed. But the question is, what is the America's strategic objective? Because there's a lack of clarity there, not just there, but also in the Middle East, quite frankly. What are we doing? What's the plan? How do we get out? How do we achieve the strategic objectives we laid out? Because we've achieved done of this. It's a negotiation. And I think that, you know, this president is learning that negotiation is the path. that will get real results. I think he's seeing that with China. I think the relationship is shifting, but each country is going to do what they perceive to be in their best interest. I think it's important that Americans to understand what us are. We are at a time, and I know we want to talk about Iran too, but why don't we do that next week, and that way we can catch up some more. Absolutely, John. Always a pleasure to catch up with you. Randy Daniels, enjoy with the family Memorial Day and remember the friends we have lost. Absolutely. The Cats Roundtable. Well, there's big time controversy on climate change. And finally, the United Nations has said, well, maybe it's not really happening. Well, with us today is an expert. She, Brianna Lyman, and she is with the Federalist. And, well, Brianna, I mean, you know, the joke I tell on the air is the same people that believe the planet Earth was flat, believed that climate is changing. What is the reality? And you tell us. And John, those same people also believe that men can become women. That's the kind of caliber of people that we're dealing with here. Yeah, look, the UN came out and they said, look, after 50 years of getting it wrong every single time, we finally decided that climate change isn't actually that big of a deal, right? It's not happening the way it would. And, you know, a lot of people are trying to just kind of sweep that revelation under the rug, especially Democrats, because they sold the climate change life for decades. to their voters. And yet they're stopping it now, and it's not because they suddenly found new evidence. Okay, the evidence they use now is the evidence that all the, you know, climate deniers and Nazi collaborators had for 30, 40 years saying, hey, look, Florida is actually not going to go underwater. What happened now is that it is so politically toxic to run on climate change because what comes along with climate change is affordability issues, right? Democrats' policies drive up. costs for families, for small businesses. It causes disinvestment. And the Democrats are trying to, you know, buffer their electoral prospects this November by backing off a really toxic platform. Well, you're absolutely right. And, you know, when I spoke at a forum the other day, and what I said is because everybody says CO2 is going up.

But I gave him the interpretation of why CO2 is going up. The reason CO2 is going up, when we go from 7 billion people to 8 billion people, the planet Earth adjust for it because CO2 feeds the plants and planet Earth has to grow more plants to feed those extra billion people. Right. And those same people are the ones who said that we would have an overpopulation crisis and we had to stop having children for that exact reason you just mentioned. And yet now, you know, 15 years after that initial, you know, stop having kids were overpopulating the earth and causing climate change happened. We're now facing a birth rate crisis, not just in the United States, but across the West. So these people have consistently gotten it wrong. for years. And none of them are going to be held accountable, right? Al Gore, John Kerry, the rest of the climate activists, some of them are going to have to pay back any of the money that they got either in grants or got paid for by climate activists to go and speak about climate change. It was all this ruse just to, you know, line the coffers of Democratic allies. And for what? Like what did we get out of it? The only two things that we really got out of it were, again, higher, higher gas prices. And we gave places like China and even India and Edge, right? They never stopped producing the emissions they produced. China is responsible for a third of global emissions. Nothing we do here. We could cut all emissions tomorrow, and it would still be negligible until China and India and a few of our other allies or not allies, you know, world partners also took those same measures. But they didn't. And Democrats never went after China or India, and so they shipped our jobs there, right? They actually gave them more incentive to produce emissions. So it was all a big farce, and people are going to try to sweep it under the rug the same way they did the COVID scandal. And I really wish people would not let that happen. Now, I don't know if you were involved in windmills at all, but windmills along the Atlantic coast, the Long Island coast and the whole Atlantic Ocean are... against the environment. They're destroying the environment. They're destroying the fishing population which feeds our people. And what it does is the windmills end up costing 200 to 300 percent more for the electricity that they produce. Oh, yeah, and the same for the solar panels. You know, New Jersey had gotten rid of almost all of its coal-powered plants in favor of these alternate energy sources. And that was a flashpoint in this past gubernatorial race, right? Mikie Sherrill kept running on, I'm going to freeze all increases in, you know, gas prices and electricity prices. And then you had the Republican candidate who said, well, I'm not going to just freeze, you know, prices. I'm going to make sure that we can bring back new energy sources like coal, like gas-powered plants. That way your energy prices naturally are lowered because we don't have to just jump into this clean energy when it's expensive. And I think there's an argument to be made, too.

Look, if you want to, in the next 100 years, figure out a way where solar panels aren't costing people more money and they are making a difference, that's fine. You know, I don't think anybody would have a problem. But when those solar panels and windmills and any other alternative energy stores they find starts costing families an extra $500 a month, that's a problem. And that does more damage to the future of the world than any, you know, climate change has done. Absolutely correct. And the problem is, and I was a Democrat at one time. I was a Bill Clinton Democrat, and I thought Bill Clinton had some common sense. But right now, the current Democratic Party is run by the Socialists, and they have no common sense. None at all. And again, all of these, you know, especially the progressives, they like to hang their hat on the climate change thing because they don't actually have anything to fight for, right? So they have to find something to kind of rally their own base with. And climate change falls into that whole social justice equity thing you constantly hear about, except there's no measurable way to determine whether that social justice is working, that equality is working, that climate justice is working. I heard of it. Harrison Ford at a commencement address just recently talking about how climate change and social Neil Gorsuch hand in hand and you can't do one without the other, so let's do both. And it's like maybe he didn't get the memo, but Democrats don't want to talk about climate change because it is destroying a constituency that they desperately need. You know, I read a paper in the New York Times too, maybe like a month ago. And it basically said that all of these Democrats, the reason that they've been debating, they should talk about climate change, is because they want to focus their stick on affordability. And you can't talk about affordability at the time of change in the same breath. Brianna, we're at a time, but I want to talk to you again some more in the near future. And please stay in touch with us, and we'll continue to talk. And we'll catch up soon and have a great Memorial Day weekend. You too. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for listening to the Cats Roundtable. We'll be right back right after this break. Here's the man who is New York, exploring the truth, telling both sides with common sense thinking. Here's John Katzimittis on Talk Radio 77 W-A-B-C. This is the Cats Roundtable. Welcome back to the Cats Roundtable.

With us today is Nicole Parker, and she was with the FBI for quite a few years, and she was a special agent for them, and she wrote a book, The Two FBIs, Bravery and Betrayal, and she saw it all. Well, Memorial Day weekend, where do you want to start, Nicole? Well, first of all, I want to start by honoring our fallen heroes that have served our nation in our military and armed sources. We owe everything to them because we all know that freedom is not free. You know, you mentioned my book, the two FBI's, and there's a portion of my book where I talk about... someone named David Frazier, and he was in the Army, and he was a top graduate from West Point. He ran on their cross-country team. He studied engineering. He had a very bright future. And David was like a little brother to me. He grew up with me in Houston, Texas. He was best friends with my younger brother, and he went and served our nation. And he... was on his way back home, actually, to Texas. You know, he had about a week left, and he paid the ultimate sacrifice when he was blown up by an IED in Iraq, November of 2006. And so to me, you know, Memorial Day is not just a day to have barbecues and get together with friends and celebrate. It really is a sacred day that we need to honor our heroes. And I talk about David in my book and the influence and impact that he made on me watching him and his service and what he did for our nation. He really was an inspiration to me to want to go ahead and apply to the FBI when I did in 2009, and I did get in in 2010, and then I went on to serve for over a dozen years. And so, first of all, like you to talk about Memorial Day and say that we owe everything to our armed service members and those that pay the ultimate sacrifice, you will never, ever be forgotten. Now, you wrote the book, The Two FBI's. Tell me about the two FBI's and what you want to say about it. Well, I really love being an FBI special agent. In addition to being inspired by David Frazier, like I said, who served in the Army, I also was a witness of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. And as you know, we're coming up on the 25th year anniversary of that. And that was something that changed my life. I was working for Maryland at the time. I was working in the World Financial Center. I was on the top floor, the North Tower, the World Financial Center, when the first tower was hit. And then obviously we went on to watch the second tower be hit, and it was an absolutely terrifying moment. And I do tell it quite vividly in my book. It was terrifying, and it was, again, a life-changing moment for me to watch people in total desperation jumping to their deaths. And I knew that one day I wanted to go back and serve. I was inspired by David. I was inspired by those from NYPD, FD, the Port Authority Police Department, all of those that rescued.

thousands of people the morning of September 11th. And I also saw others, you know, jumping to their deaths and those that went to go try to rescue them who also paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect others. And so. Going to the FBI, that was what I was there for. I wanted to serve my country, and I got there, and that's what I did. But, you know, with time, particularly I would say around 2016, I started to notice that the FBI was politically weaponized. And I would say it was James Comey coming out on July 5th of 2016, talking about how no reasonable prosecutor would charge Hillary Clinton for her misuse and mishandling of classified information. And at that point, I knew that he had taken a political stance. and who kind of veered out of his lane as what an FBI director should do. And as we know, that led into the Russia collusion hoax. They wanted to distract everyone from what Hillary Clinton did. And they, you know, shuffled things over to try to grab people's attention and have them focus on what they said was the, you know, Trump campaign, colluding with the Russians, which they understood. And we now know that that was all a hoax. But they went to great lengths to try to take certain individuals down, certain people on certain sides of the political spectrum, particularly President Trump, his supporters, conservatives. And as time went on at the FBI. Let me ask one question. Were these people that tried to take Trump down? Were they career FBI people or were they politically appointed people? So FBI 1 are the good solid FBI agents and staff. FBI 2 are those that were politically and socially weaponized that were, you know, using their law enforcement power to push their political agendas. So FDI 2 would be those individuals that you're referring to that were doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons and didn't have pure motives. Some of them were, a lot of them were career individuals at the FBI. Some of them were support staff members. Some of them were special agents. Some of them were at headquarters in Washington, D.C. It went from the top all the way down to the bottom. And it was those that were abusing their power and going after political opponents. That's when things started to go off the rails at the FBI. And then as time progressed, particularly in 2020, 2021, going into the Biden administration. You know, when they were sending the SWAT team for January 6th misdemeanor takedowns, but yet my best friend in the FBI was shot and killed in the line of duty, executing a warrant for a child predator, and there was no SWAT protection for her. Nicole Parker, happy Memorial Day, and remember the friends we have lost always, and we'll talk again real soon. Thank you so much, and God bless. The Cats Roundtable. Memorial Day weekend. Well, Sunday, what the heck is going on in New York? Well, Governor Patterson is with us today, like every Sunday. Give us your opinion.

Well, the legislature on Wednesday, sorry, Thursday night, passed legislation, both the Democrats and the Republicans, really impairing the ability of local governments to cooperate with federal agencies. Now, the last I heard, The federal government supersedes the local government. When I was governor, I tried to adhere to that. But I don't understand why they did this because it is only going to ignite more interest in... sending in more ICE agents, creating more types of problems between different communities and that kind of thing. And I don't understand that. On the show Thursday night, as you remember, John, we talked about what the reaction could be and we settled on the idea that probably... the afflicted entities, in other words, Nassau County, Suffolk County, the other counties around the state could band together and bring a lawsuit against the state legislature itself and the governor for taking this approach. And I just don't understand how we got into the situation we're in now. I don't understand either, Governor. I mean, we want New Yorkers to be safe. We want New York City people to be safe, New York State people to be safe. If they're dangerous criminals on some of these migrants or immigrants, if they're dangerous, then they should do what they have to do. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, we'll wait and see what the reaction is as we start to get into the, you know, starting Tuesday when everybody comes back to work. But I just thought that that was an egregious mistake that they made. Now, on the other hand, President Trump came on Friday to the Westchester-Rockland County area to support the congressman whose name is escaping me. Well, you're talking about Mr. Mike Lawler. Mr. Mike Lawler. Mike Lawler in Rockling County. Yes. Mike Lawler is a very well-respected elected official on both sides of the aisle. He's... has a closer race than I think he anticipated, but he's out there. And the president came in, and he did talk about all the things Mike Lawler has done for his district. But he also talked about a lot of the things that he's done over the years. And he puts together a pretty good battery of achievements that he can cite. However, most recently, he's got this $16 billion proposal for some kind of fund.

for people who feel that they were abused by the police or by local governments when they were protesting and that kind of thing. And I don't have the slightest idea why he would do something like that because what you're really doing is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. You are taking the authority away from the local governments and also from the... from the law enforcement agencies in favor of anybody who thinks that they got shoved or something like that tries to get money out of this one. I think it's one of the biggest mistakes that the president ever made. And as you know, I don't walk around regularly criticizing him. And I talked about the positive things he did in this interview. But I think that is going to lead to a lot of problems for the president because they can also sue. And I think they'll win. Well, Governor David Patterson, thank you so much for everything you've done for our country and everything you've done for our city. And God bless America. And let's remember the people we've lost on this Memorial Day weekend. Happy Memorial Day weekend.

Well, Memorial Day weekend. With us today is Steve Kates. What's going on in the skies? And I love when we talk about what's going on on Mars and then on the moon. And my son was telling me about Neptune the other day or all the strange things that are going on. Well, Steve Kates, Sunday morning, where do you want to start this morning? Well, good morning, John, and the great Memorial Day weekend, as we salute, of course, those who have died in the service of our country, a solemn weekend. But, John, let's continue on the conversation everywhere, it seems, the discussion of potential alien life out there. And I'd like to dig deeper into this, because recently many people may have heard that ex-TIA scientist, Dr. Hal Putoff, and also some other deep dive scientists in the CIA realm like Dr. Eric Davis. gave us some information, which is yet unsubstantiated, that from these crash retrievals that many in the government say, like David Grush whistleblower, that we've talked about now being maybe four distinct types of alien extraterrestrials, one being the grays, the other these tall, blonde Nordics, the reptilians, God help us, imagine that, John, and these ones that look like insects. But a deeper dive, John, into these grays, in some of these alleged autopsy, you know, examinations, some have said that when they dug deeper into the body, what came out was like a bunch of cotton as if these were just synthetic. In other words, not actually extraterrestials in the sense, but maybe the grays are more like the little foot soldiers being more robotic and maybe synthesized. So the story continues. Nobody knows for sure. But it sure keeps our imagination strong, doesn't it, John? Well, I thought, you know, they said Ford varieties. Right. Well, according to Star Trek, there's at least 57. That's true. You know, I don't want to laugh at the whole subject, John, but from science, all we need, obviously, the understatement that everybody out there would probably say, hey, Dr. Sky, we know this. Let's get some evidence because of all the time, John, of the 80-plus years or more. Here, let's say, just in the United States and about the world studying this, give us at least some shred of credible evidence. At least a clear picture instead of a picture from the 1950s. Exactly. But the beat goes on, and it's interesting. We'll continue to cover it on our Dr. Sky experience as other good hosts here on this station. But John, shifting gears, let's talk more about space, the reality of going to the stars. Elon Musk and his... Soon to be launched, if it hasn't already been launched, the Starship 12. What's this whole rocket? The most powerful rocket, John, in the world. 16 million pounds of thrust with 33 Raptor engines. The great Apollo Saturn 5 got to 7.5 million pounds. But they're going to be testing a brand new booster, and they're also going to be testing the Gen 3 Starship. That's the piece on top of the big booster that eventually, if all goes well, and we hope it does.

Send people to the moon, Mars, and beyond. And it's a very interesting story because this rocket, every time they launched it in the past, they had damaged, John, at the launch pad. So they've improved what they call the flame and water recovery system on the bottom, so they don't have to rebuild the launch pad every time they launch a rocket. So Elon Musk doing great things. But it gets better, John. Listen to this story, folks. This is amazing. SpaceX will intentionally slam a booster from a previous rocket that they've had in space, a long time ago, a Falcon 9. They're going to slam John, and they're looking to target an area of the moon. The 45-foot booster rocket will be slammed into the moon on or about August 5th. Now, people with small telescopes, this may be something. Yours truly will be out there, and we'll talk more about it. They're doing it so they can test what kind of impact crater dust you get. So if we're landing on the moon, we want to know what sizeable objects do to release this debris from craters. It slammed into none other than a crater named Einstein. So, John, that's a fascinating thing. And the truth is, you know, there's so many rumors that, and even some of the astronauts talk about it, that the moon may be hollow. But the truth is, I don't know what the truth is. Well, John, here's some facts. When the Apollo astronauts sent their seismometers on the moon, the Apollo astronauts, there was a distinctive ringing in the moon, meaning that somewhere deep down in the moon, it may be not 100% hollow, obviously. That's not proven science. But the density and composition of the moon is distinctly different than that of the Earth. And we see a minimal if no magnetic field on the moon. But there's been many movies, John, that came out talking about the hollowness of the moon. And who knows what that is, but that's more on the sci-fi side. Now, if we move on to other strange things in the universe, we call it the mystery of the week. What's happening here, John, is we're hearing from meteorologists around the world that were set up for a super El Nino events. And the distinction between El Nino and La Nino is this. El Nino is warmer water in the Pacific, which can cause different amounts of weather conditions, whereas the opposite, the La Nina is the colder water, and it changes the weather. But space scientists, John, have even talked about this, since all weather comes from the sun. A new theory is that these magnetic waves move from the poles of the sun over the course of a solar cycle. And once they meet at the equator, they can change the event time between what happens as far as a big or a minimal solar cycle. So to keep it simple, the longer time between these termination events, the weaker the solar cycle. But what is enough to do with El Nino? Obviously, all weather comes from the sun. So we really don't know the true definition of a solar cycle, but in Earth terms, we can expect this to happen, meaning what? The Super El Nino could start as early as July, all over to the end of the year. The scientists say there's a 96% chance that that will be a strong one. And this particular thing will change the weather. So we'll have over here in the West Coast of the United States, warmer and wetter.

In the southern part of the United States, it will be cooler and wetter. So, John, in simple terms, all weather comes from the sum. This El Nino can affect us in good and bad ways, but we'll keep you posted on the big changes. Well, Dr. Sky and Steve Kates is also, finally, the United Nations and other world organizations say that we were wrong about climate change. And I've always said that, and maybe we should talk about it next week in more detail, because I've always said that planet Earth is a living entity, making constant adjustments. on what's going on. I'll give you one example. Sure. People say, well, CO2 has gone up. And you know the real reason the CO2 has gone up? The planet Earth made an adjustment. If you have 7 billion people living in the world and all of a sudden you need enough food for 8 billion people, the CO2 has to go up to create more plant life. for the extra billion people to eat, but we'll talk more about it in the near future. Right, John, and just quickly in closing, also to go along the same lines about how the Earth can heal itself. Evidence shows that a solar storm from 12,000 years ago was 500 times the big one in 1859, and you're right, and scientists are studying more that the Earth has this healing effect, not that we should be rabid polluters. John, it's an amazing planet, and we haven't yet found another one like it out there in the universe. The Cats Roundtable. If you ever miss a segment or want to hear it again, go to wabcradio.com, go to podcasts, go to minicass, and play back your favorite segment.