This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind, and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Welcome to the Dan Caplis Show. I am not Dan Capless. I know that all of you wonderful listeners are smart enough to realize it the immediate moment that I opened my mouth. No, I am Deborah Flora is so happy to be sitting in this chier again. So enjoyed our time together on Tuesday. And also I'll be here with Ryan Schuling, our very own Ryan Shuling every Friday at two pm. Looking forward to that tomorrow as well. But want to jump right into this because we've got some
great guests coming up after the break. We're gonna have John Prepregatory joining us. He was the former ice director over Wyoming and Colorado, former CD six candidate. He and I actually went down to the border with a few others when I was with a different radio station last year, and so we've had a lot of great conversations about that. And then at five o'clock, Jennifer say is going to be joining me. She's the former just top notch gymnast who also started xx x Y as a clothing company
to protect women in girls' sports and safe spaces. I do have one of those baseball caps. Love it, work out with it all the time. It's very fun. But you know what, let's just jump right into the show. And I have to preface this part of it that pretty much everything I've done has been for two reasons.
Love of country, love of my children.
I am a mom to say the least, and when I hear stories like this, they both come together. That's why I've been involved in educational freedom parental rights running for office. I'm traveling around currently doing a lot of national policy work in the area of school choice and parental rights.
But when I share this story.
With you, the mom and me comes out even more than the policy expert. Because the behavior of this particular witness when he was in front of the House Oversight Committee about why he should receive an A I guess you would say grade is very reminiscent of how I had to deal with my own children. How to set the stage, this clip you're about to here is Georgia Representative Rich McCormick. He is asking the current Postmaster General,
Lewis de Joy. I think that's a funny name, because this clip actually brings me a lot of joy because it's just darn funny. But here's what happened when Representative McCormick said to the current Postmaster General, and keep us in mind, by the way, I think we all know that everything now is compared to the post Office and the Postal Service as being the bottom level of customer
service and efficiency. But this is what Rich McCormick said to him and Lewis de Joy's response when he was asked to rate himself and he gave himself an A rating. Thank you Ryan for playing that clip number five.
You, sir, do not get.
An A grade.
You cannot give yourself that grade. I just think you can't. You can't create your on paper, sir. I've been to medical school. I bet I got my MBA.
You can't.
I'm sorry.
You were greater by the United States people and they don't use your service anymore. You bankrupt. You bankrupt this through your reputations. Only through your reputations, you are responsible for the fall of the Postal Service.
And the lack of accountability is responsible.
So it's kind I'm trying to fix.
I am trying to fix.
On your service.
With all my watch the same stuff, with all the AI, with all the computer systems, you're worse than if I took yourself and picked up the mail and delivered it two miles down the road. That's you.
I hope you got that on camera.
This is the response that the postmaster just gave Congress when he doesn't like what he hears, literally covered his ears and gave himself the grade of A And with that, sir, I rest good.
I'm not sure which part of that to address first. Now, I do wish you could see this. If you haven't seen it, make sure you go and you actually watch the visual the visual of this interchange. So, first of all, this is the person that is over our entire postal service. And first of all, let's just set the stage. Since Lewis de Joy took over as a Postmaster General in
twenty twenty. First of all, there was a lot of controversy about it because he actually came from the private sector where he ran a competitor to the Postal Service, so there was a.
Conflict of interest.
Some people thought he was the first person to take that role since nineteen ninety two without any previous experience in the USPS.
And what did he do.
He continued to decline the USPS volume of service, slowed down, the turnaround he limited over time. He banned additional trips to deliver mail that is not exactly great customer service. He decommissioned hundreds of high speed mail sorting machines.
Have no idea why he would do that.
And it actually increased a concern about mail and ballots getting to where they needed to be in time. Now, what is interesting about this is not only if you hear his responses when being called on the carpet. First of all, I love the comment you do not get to grade yourself. That was the teacher comment to the students sitting there deflecting.
Then the current Postmaster General said, I just did That was his response. That's not true.
That was another response, you blamed someone else in this case, namely Congress. Then he said some derogatory thing like you're talking to yourself.
I'm not kidding you.
I think every mother has heard those kind of deflections. And then when he simply put his hands over his ears, The visual.
Is absolutely studing.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry, because, to be honest, this is someone that is in a very high position in the government. And when you think about how important our postal service is now so much of it has gone private, to see that kind of childish behavior is amazing. The only thing that was missing was him putting his hands over his ears and then saying, Nana, Nana, I don't hear you.
That's basically what he was doing.
I tell you, I think that you know, we need more moms to rise up and just put a lot of people in time out. He would have been in time out had I been sitting in that seat. So there you go, another episode that builds the American's confidence and those who are appointed to government.
We just want people that are good at what they do.
So here's another situation that is undermining people's confidence in the current government to say the least. And many of us have been hearing about these dozens of mysterious drones over New Jersey and New York.
They're basically the two states that they're talking about.
Over three thousand reports suspiciously near by the way the Picatinny Arsenal Military base, the Trump National Golf Club in the area, the Verrizanto Brisno And why is this important? It connects Brooklyn's US Army Garrison, Fort Hamilton and Staten Island, US Coast Guard station in New York, the largest of its kind on the East Coast. Now, I don't know about you, but that seems like some sites that people would want to look at if they were wishing us ill.
Now here's the incompetence part again. While we are hearing a lot more from New Jersey senators and representatives who are trying to get to the bottom of this, here's what we're hearing from the FBI. The FBI said these drones could range from quote sophisticated state actors and adversaries that want to hurt us to quote just a nuisance drone that could cause harm. But they don't know the answer yet. How does this happen in the United States of America? I mean, really, it is time that we
demand from our government. I think that's why there's going to be a changeover. Actually, they're doing their job. When you think about it. What is government's job in a constitutional republic? It is two things.
Protect the constitutional.
Rights of its citizens, and protect their security. That's it failing miserably. By the way, the Pentagon gave us this little gem. It said, definitively it is not from a foreign actor. However, they cannot tell us what it is. So I don't know how they can tell us it's definitively not from a foreign entity when they can't even
tell us what it actually is. New Jersey Congressman Jeff Andrew has stated that confidential sources that have talked to him have talked about an Iran mothership that while the Pentagon is denying that it is actually off of our mainland, all that is being said it is no longer in its own port. I don't know about you, but if you're having flashes of all kinds of disaster, movies of a mother ship and three thousand sightings of drones, well
you are not alone. I'm going to head to the break early because when we come back, we're going to have John Fabrigatory joining me. He is the former director of ICE covering Colorado as well as Yoming. We're going to talk about safety and security because he also served in the Air Force in a security role as well. So when we come back, we're going to find out how much confidence that John has perhaps in those statements of it's not this, but we have no idea what
it is. Time to get better from our government. Don't go anywhere when we come back of John Fabricatory. This is Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan Caplis.
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Welcome back to the Dan Caplis Show. I am Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan Caplis, and we have been talking about things that make you go pause and lose a little bit of confidence in our current safety and security. And I cannot think of anyone I would rather have joined me to talk about these topics than a good friend, John Fabricatory.
Many of you may know him.
He is a retired field office director for the Denver Office of Ice. He oversaw areas including Colorado and Wyoming, covering nearly two hundred thousand square miles and more than two hundred federal employees. I did feel safer when he was in that position, to say the least. He was also the Republican nominee for Congressional District six against Jason Crowe. You know, John, thank you so much for joining me and thank you for always being willing to serve our country.
I so appreciate it.
Thank you for having me on. It's just been a little while since you and I have been together.
Yeah, we had a lot of experience with that when we were down at the border in El Paso in twenty twenty three and many times since then. But it's good to do this again, and once again, thank you for running. I just want to say that anyone who gets into the arena deserves a great, great pat on the back of appreciation. You ran a great race, but I appreciate that you're still on the job, and I
want to just jump right into it. There has been a lot going on, obviously about our border, and when you look at the fact that you know, we've got the Denver mayor, Mike Johnston, who has he's stepped back from this, but he actually said that he would use Denver police to stand up against any deportation efforts. What would you say, as someone who has served both in the military and the Air Force, who has served with ICE, what would you say about a comment like that.
It was very unnecessary and it really it shouldn't have been said. You know, I had the opportunity to work with Denver Pead hundreds of times over the years. You know, when I first came to Denver in the late nineties, there were some great men and women that I got to work with, great detectives, great great keep guys and girls on the street that you know, we were able to solve a lot of crimes, arrest a lot of people, especially drug traffickers and the X crimes, and a lot
of different things. And it's working together that keeps the community safe. And you know, Mike Johnson saying stuff like that is it's just not good for Colorado and really should not have been said.
No, it has been.
Instead, we've been dealing with the situation and you and I've talked about this many times over the last couple of years that since twenty nineteen we're basically a sanctuary state where there's already prohibition between this coordination between federal law enforcement, state and local law enforcement. Let alone throwing this into the mix. I want to jump into the changes that are coming. You know, when we were down there the border together, you introduced us to so many
great people. We heard that you know, a huge portion of who were coming over from what people call the Stans Afghanistan to Jikistan, Uzbekistan, et cetera, Russia and China.
What do you think.
About Tom homan As being named by Donald Trump to be the incoming new borders are obviously he has a long history as a former ICE director. What do you think the changes are going to be and what do you think about that selection?
Tom is absolutely awesome. I have the opportunity to work from many times. You know, with ICE is a cops cop. He says exactly what he means, which is awesome when you're working for somebody and you know the changes that he is going to make really aren't changes you am forcing the law. He's just going to take the laws that we have and say, hey, guys and girls, go
out there and actually enforce this. Yes, it's what Trump tried to do in the first administration, but the left just you know, they just rallied against them and they sued him hundreds of times. You know, But this time around, I think prisident Trump is way more prepared for it this time and he's not going to allow that to happen.
Yeah, I agree.
Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan Campus. My guest is John fabrigatory.
John.
You know, I was talking in the opening of the show about these drones three thousand sightings, Pentagon can't say what they are, what they're not, all of these sorts of things. I love that Tom Homan coming in is the new board. That means that it's not just a southern border, it's a northern border. He's also going to oversee maritime and aviation security. How refreshing is that after a Chinese balloon just traped its way across our missile sites.
What do you think you served in.
The Air Force as a security police and security forces member. Tell me your thoughts about this whole drone siding and the lack of intel that is out there seems to be out there about what's really going.
On, And that is the key point, the last part that you just said, the lack of that's what really worries me. So, you know, the last few days, I've been on the phone with a lot of buddies who either just recently retired from the military or are still in and they are even like, we don't know what this is.
Wow, And the fact that.
We don't shows how far behind we are with our security methods as technology advances. Now, some of these drones that they're spotting seem to be pretty advanced drones. It does seem like they're your backyard type drones that you know, just your basic persons flying out there. So it kind of worries me that our security apertures not to the
point where we can detect this. We know what's flying up there, and we know how to keep our community safe for the potential damage that these drones can bring in because remember Dubbra, these drones could be packed with explosives, right, things like that. I mean, we've seen it over in Ukraine how drones are being used in warfare right now, and you know, it's something that we should be highly
concerned about. And it worries me that there's really no effort or or even intel coming in to let the American people know that we're safe from this.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I mean it feels like we're going backwards. I mean, you think about under the Reagan administration, we helped Israel build their iron dome technology, and we can't even figure out what some drones are. Unfortunately, we have a break coming up, a heartbreak at the bottom of the hour.
But I want to ask you this.
There's a lot of historyonics about what deportation will look like, people saying, oh, I'll stand in front of the takes like Tianneman Square, and you know, federal law enforcement will be firing into civilians, which is so irresponsible to say, Yeah, tell us what you think in the last couple of minutes here, what is this actually going to be looking like.
Initially, it's going to be going after criminal aliens. That's where they're going to go after people who are you know, on the radar of law enforcement who are currently in many of the jails that we have right now. So that's going to be the initial drive. And then secondary to that are going to be people who have already seen an immigration judge and are refusing to leave the United States. So not only did they break into this country illegally, they had the opportunity to see a judge,
and they're still refusing to follow our immigration laws. Those are who are going to go after initially, and you know, people saying that they're going to do this and that it's just immature and it's not going to happen.
Yeah, no, it seems very irresponsible.
You know.
One of the last things I want to say is you know, thank you again for your service, John, and I hope that we see you a lot.
More helping in this area.
You know, why don't you just give a last view for folks of what we heard of who's actually coming over the border, so we can just always position this to our neighbors.
Yeah, we know we need to be concerned because it's people from all over the world that are coming across that border. And you know, the intel that we have is we're seeing, you know, people from China, people like you said, from the stands, there are criminal aliens coming across the border. Gang members. That's who was allowed in these last four years. That's who Tom Holman is going to focus in on, and that's how we're going to make America safer.
I so appreciate Thank you so much, John, and I think everybody's before that that's not even partisan, but at least there's going to be a real borders are. It kind of makes me laugh that Kamala Harris was the last borders are and we just saw what.
Happened when she was when she was in that position.
Thank you, John, I appreciate your joining the show and thanks for your continued service.
To Colorades into our country.
Happy Holidays, Deborah.
You too, Merry Christmas to you. Well, don't go anywhere.
When we come back where you continue this conversation about how do we secure our country.
We'll be right back on.
Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan Caplis.
You're listening to the Dan capless Show podcast.
Welcome back to the Dankaplis Show. I'm Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan today and so enjoying the conversations we are having. We just had John Fabricatory join us. He's a former ice director that covered the area all of Wyoming and Colorado, ran for CD six, served in the Air Force, someone who knows security, and we had a
great conversation. By the way, if you've missed any of this or the great show that we had on Tuesday, where a Dallas Jenkins, the creator of The Chosen and the director of the current Christmas movie that is in theaters, you get everywhere the best Christmas pageant ever. You can see those where they are posted for podcasts. But wanted to continue this conversation because John shared and confirmed what I thought was the biggest and most concerning thing about
this headline going on the drones. Nearly three thousand have been cited, or three thousand sightings of them, shall we say over New Jersey and New York. Now, let's we think that that's just an odd place to have them. Let's remember that they are suspiciously near according to sources Picatinny Arsenal Military Base and Arsenal Military Base, Trump National Golf Club in the area. We know there's already been threats against the President elect and former present ccident against him.
The Verrizono Bridge. Now, why is that important?
Because in New York it connects Brooklyn's US Army Garrison, Fort Hamilton and Staten Island's US Coast Guard station in New York.
Now here's the problem.
We're being told all these things that these drones are not, but we're not being told anything that they are. Case in point, here is a clip from John Kirby. He's a White House National Security Communications advisor, and let's hear that clip, clip number twenty four, that said, we.
Certainly take seriously the threat that can be posed by unmanned aircraft systems, which is why law enforcement and other agencies continue to support New Jersey and investigate the reports. Even though they have uncovered no malicious activity or intent
at this particular stage. While there's no known malicious activity occurring, the reported sightings there do, however, highlight a gap in authority, and so we urge Congress to pass important legislation that will extend and expand existing counter joone authorities so that we are better prepared to identify and mitigate any potential threats to airports or other critical infrastructure, and so that state and local authorities are provided all the tools that
they need to respond to such threats as well.
Well, there you go.
To me, that sounds like some good old fashioned passing of the buck, because let's just hear who he said should be a responsible for this local law enforcement, as though, by the way, our wonderful lawforcement, our police officers and others do not already have their hands full in states where there has not been a lot of support for them.
Then the next one was Congress, and.
He did say, oh, we do take it very seriously, but the reality is this, really the American people have no confidence because this is the same exact administration. Let's recall this, shall we two years ago Chinese balloon the size of three school buses let's just refresh your memory. It was the size of three school buses, hovered about sixty thousand feet in the air, drifting across the continental US.
From reports, it started in Alaska, went all the way across down through Montana, and they didn't even bother to shoot it down until it was off of our coast. Now, that happened for seven days, passing over sensitive security areas including Maelstrom Air Force Base and Great Falls, Montana, which was a home to stockpiles of missile and nuclear defense infrastructure. What happened at the time that this was, you know, was going on the.
Same Biden White House.
And this is where I have to give Kirby the Bless your Heart Award of the Day, because bless your heart that you have to keep covering for this kind of ineptitude of security in this current administration. But at that time Biden claimed it was quote not a major security breach. What did we find out after it was shot down? It was communicating with China through an American Internet provider equipped with thousands of pounds of equipment, including
a massive surveillance payload. Well, yes, that did not turn out to be nothing to worry about. So as we're hearing this right now, they can't tell us what it is. And John Fabricatory confirmed my suspicion that that's probably the biggest issue right now. And now they're saying that this is really nothing to worry about. You know, it's time that we absolutely demand greater accountability and protection from our government. I keep returning to this, what is the role of government.
It is not to dictate every part of our lives or our constitutional representative republic is to protect our individual liberties and our safety and security. Let's say that under this administration that has been an abject failure. I was very encouraged by the way John Fabrigatory also shared he knows Tom Homan, who is going to be the incoming borders are. Let's remember by the way he takes that mantle from Kamala Harris, which.
Is unfortunately a low bar. He will far surpass that.
And I love the fact that he will actually be over not just the southern border, not just the northern border, but also maritime and aviation security. I have a feeling that starting January twentieth, there'll be a lot more information and a lot more action about anything that just happens to be floating over our sovereign nation.
I certainly hope so.
Okay, switching gears by the way, speaking of borders ours Tuesday, I was sharing that the Time magazine was about to announce their person of the year. We went through on Tuesday who they were looking at. One of them was Kamala Harris, the outgoing borders are who did not even go down to the border for years, and in fact actually went to Guatemala first.
And I want to tell you.
One of the biggest, oh biggest things that.
Irked me when we were down there.
I remember talking to a border agent and these are stoic guys that deal with constant threats. They're dealing with the people they call the stands Afghanistan to Jikistan, Whuzbekistan, Russia, China, Venezuelan gangs coming over. So to see this man break down in tears, and why did he under Kamala Harris
as the quote unquote borders are. They so rushed through the processing because they did not want there to be any children down there where it could be a bad photo op where it could look like maybe they were holding children, you know, the way that they falsely accused the Trump administration of having children in cages. That's not what it was. I saw those places firsthand, their chain link fences just separating areas, but nobody was chained up or put in, you know, some kind of a cage.
But what happened under the Biden administration, under Kamala Harris, well, according to this border security agent, and it is the reason why quietly Susan Rice retired because a report was going to come out that tens of thousands of children are now lost somewhere in America.
And this border patrol agent told me that they were.
So rushed by the Trump administration to process people that they actually would just hand these children off to whoever would show off show up to take them, no verification
process at all. So I'm happy to announce that that very same former borders are Kamala Harris was not chosen as the Time magazine Person of the Year because, as we talked about, her claims to fame would have been having a one hundred and seven day presidential campaign where she did not receive a single vote to be the Democrat nominee, having run a one point five billion dollar spending account just in those one hundred and seven days and still being twenty million dollars in debt. Nope, they
did not choose her. Well, you may have already seen. The other people they were considering was Joe Rogan, Kate Middleton, who certainly our prayers go out to Kate Middleton, but would not have been my choice. Elon Musk would have been one of my choices. Benjamin Nett and Yahoo, Claudius Scheinbaum, the first woman president of Mexico, Donald Trump, and Mark Zuckerberg, and the person they named is actually Donald Trump. Nice
to see when they do something the right way. But one of the first leaks of the magazine cover had this state man underneath it, President of the Divided States of America. You know what, It's time for the mainstream media to pull back because they are part of what is dividing us. When you see CNN, MSNBC and by the way, the N in both of those stands for nonsense.
When you have pundits on those shows saying that we're going to see American US military or federal officials shooting into crowds of civilians, saying that you should cut off your relatives if they voted for Donald Trump. We know where the division comes from, and I believe that we may have an opportunity now to begin to be the United.
States of America once again. Well, don't go anywhere. We're heading to a break.
I am Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan Cappas and Hey, by the way, here's your question five seven seven three nine text into the show.
Who do you think are behind the mystery drones? Don't go anywhere. I'm Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan Caplis.
And now back to the Dankapliss Show podcast.
Welcome back to the Dan Caplis Show. I'm Deborah Flora sitting in for Dan Kaplas. Love that song, Stand in the place where you live, Stand in the place where you work.
That is a perfect setup for the.
Guests we're going to have at the top of the hour after the break. That is going to be Jennifer Say, who is someone who has stood up against so many injustices in our society, and she definitely has a message to encourage each and every one of us to do that. In fact, Jennifer and I recently stood together in August.
I was one of the co hosts. I guess kind of co organizers of the first ever March for Kids in Washington, d C. We had people like Tulca Gabbard, Glenn Beck, Jennifer Say, and others were we stood together to really basically advocate for this radical idea, which is parents have the right to be the ultimate authority in their children's upbringing.
Yep, I know crazy.
You would think it's crazy from all the things that are happening in our culture right now. I've often said that if our founding fathers ever thought that they would get to the place where that is even being questioned in the slightest they would have put parental rights in the Bill of Rights. But it was unthinkable to them that that would happen. In fact, when you look over the history of Western civilization, the family is the building block.
It is the building block.
Of our civilization, which is perhaps why it is being so attacked right now. It's an area that I've been involved with a lot. My husband and I have a media company. We made the documentary called Whose Children Are They? And the reason why we did that is to show every single area where this is being undermined. Now, what does this have to do with Jennifer She is standing up against some of the craziness that is going on
and protecting girls and women's sports and safe spaces. How does this intertwine with all that, Well, let's just say this. For instance, in my home school district where I went, Sherry Creed School District, there is evidence that they have been socially transitioning children without their parents' knowledge or consent. When you have these situations going on where Title nine is being undermined, that is another part of this radical movement.
You know, let's just talk a little bit about what's going on. As we all know.
A little over a week ago, the US Supreme Court heard the Tennessee case United States Versus Scrimmetti. Now, what is this In Tennessee, there's a law prohibiting transgender medical procedures for miners. And what's interesting about it, it's just one of twenty five US states, Tennessee is that has banned gender transitions for transgender miners.
More than fifteen have enacted.
Shield laws that protect against such procedures.
Well, here's what's interesting.
Many people think, oh, you know, there's a puritanical nature of America. Let's just put this a little bit in context, shall we. The United Kingdom socialist country that has led the way on some of these medical procedures, just voted to detect miners from puberty blockers and it will not allow them for children under the age of eighteen with
gender dysphoria. Now, their gender dysporia is a real thing, and any child that has it deserves support, deserves to have a lot of help through that process, but not necessarily irreversible medical procedures.
Well, the UK just voted against it. And why did they do that.
Here is what they said, following official advice from medical experts. And let's be clear, because the UK is a nationalized socialist medicine situation, they have incredible records on this, and they are reversing course because here's what they said. Quote, there's currently an unacceptable safety risk and the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children. Now, let's contrast this, shall
we with our own Supreme Court. Now, first of all, Katanji Brown Jackson should recuse herself from this case because when she was confirmed, she literally said she is not able to define what a woman is because she's not a biologist. Well, if you can't define a woman because she's not a biologist, she should not be weighing in on the veracity of using this irreversible medical procedures frequently
irreversible on children. And then let's let's also contrast that with sodomayor who compared compared this procedure, these chemicals that are given surgeries, et cetera, to aspirin, saying that there is always a risk with any medical procedure. Well, last thing I heard, aspirin is not irreversible. In fact, that's why you need to take a couple every so often if you have a headache.
Thank you very much.
But let's also remember, by the way, we are more radical than Europe in many fronts, even when it comes to abortion. Let's say, wherever you are on that issue, let's just put this in context. By the way, most European countries have waiting periods before an abortion, and it is in most of them not legal after the first trimester. Here in Colorado up to the moment of birth for any reason at all time, to bring some common sense
back to our state and back to our country. And speaking of a last lack of common sense and the Supreme Court, when I've led a couple of rallies on the Supreme Court steps when certain cases were being argued. One of those was the Lorie Smith case, once again right here in Colorado, and that was the case where rightfully the Supreme Court determined they cannot force someone to create anything, or create a message, or speak against their
dearly held beliefs. I got to tell you when I led that rally, it was one of the most frightening things I've actually been a.
Part of because we had to have security as we were.
Being bum rushed by those who were standing up and was predominantly for those who were pushing an ex extream social agenda. So you know, when we come back, we're gonna have Jennifer say join us. She has been fearless and courageous to speak up and say biology is not bigotrat. We're gonna learn from her how we can have that courage and make a difference. Don't go anywhere. I'm Deborah Flora, sitting in for Dan Catlis