Now, we learn that the development of the vaccines was realized through Palantir, Peter Thiel’s Alpha predator of the electronic surveillance landscape. Furthermore, we are now seeing calls to turn our whole society and government over to Artificial Intelligence. As people with an obligation to our descendants, we have the responsibility to preserve a record of the events leading to the collapse of our social and political milieu. There is no better way of fulfilling that obligation than by obtaining the latest flash drive, containing all of Dave’s 45+ years on the air and a library of old anti-fascist books. Dave has established a Patreon site featuring articles that he and other researchers have written, interviews with guests and three, weekly talks by Dave. Listeners can interact with Monte and other guests on the platform. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
Introduction: These broadcasts continue exploration of the evolution of Domestic Stay-Behind Operations and the terrorism and violence that are the characteristics of the operations of “Team Trump.”
(This line of inquiry was introduced in FTR#‘s 1347 & 1348.)
In addition, we recap key aspects of our research into Covid-19 as a biological warfare weapon.
After Monte presents a “smoking gun” about the successful establishment of “Domestic Stay-Behind” networks, the broadcasts present information about the terrorism apparently coming from “Team Trump” being directed at election officials, meteorologists, hurricane relief workers and civic officials in places like Springfield, Ohio.
In addition, we present documentation of the resonance between Trump’s racist ideology, eugenics and the social and political philosophies of Adolf Hitler.
Reflecting on the sorry state of this country, the wisdom imparted by Sitting Bull in the 19th century looms large. “We have now to deal with another people, small and feeble when our forefathers first met with them, but now great and overbearing. . . . the love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! . . . They even take tithes of the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. . . .” Dave has launched a Patreon platform, featuring articles and Zoom talks. People can network directly with guests such as Dave’s new co-host Monte. Containing all of Mr. Emory’s work on Covid-19 and the Ukraine War, the latest 64GB flash drive is now available! WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
Introduction: Taking a respite from the projected long series of programs on U.S. Asian policy, these programs begin with Monte’s discussion of a link between Guy Banister’s “detective agency” and the coalescence of the Process Church of the Final Judgment, a focal point of a four-part Miscellaneous Archive Series on “The Ultimate Evil.
A close former associate of Banister incorporated the Process Church, which appears to have served as an intelligence front, to an extent.
The associate–Tommy Baumler–was a Nazi.
In this analysis, Monte utilized a book titled The Mad Bishops.
The bulk of the programs consist of analysis of the latest “attempt” on Trump’s life, as well as the apparent Nazi genesis of the “Haitians eating dogs and cats” meme.
It is our consensus that the “attempts” on Trump’s life are intended to provoke violence against Trump’s political opponents.
Ryan Wesley Routh also networked with the Azov Battalion.
Introduction: These programs set forth discussion of the political and historical links between “Team Trump” and the fascist regimes of Hitler, Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet.
A recent book labeling opponents of Trump et al as “Unhumans.”
The networks to which Vance, Trump and the GOP belong have evolved directly from the milieu of the JFK Assassination.
“Vance Just Endorsed a Troubling Authoritarian Book” by Michelle Goldberg; The New York Times; 8/07/2024, p. A22 (Western print edition) .
. . . . “Unhumans,” an anti-democratic screed that [Jack] Posobiec wrote with Joshua Lisec, comes with endorsements from some of the most influential people in Republican politics, including, most significantly, the vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance.
The word “fascist” gets thrown around a lot in politics, but it’s hard to find a more apt one for “Unhumans” which came out last month.
. . . . Often, they write, “great men of means” are required to crush this scourge [the “Unhumans”]. The contempt for democracy in “Unhumans” is not subtle. “Our study of history has brought us to this conclusion: Democracy has never worked to protect innocents from the unhumans,” write Posobiec and Lisec.
One of the book’s heroes is the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who overthrew the democratic Second Spanish Republic in the country’s 1930’s civil war. . . . They quote him on what doesn’t work against the unhuman threat: “We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box.” . . . .
. . . . “Unhumans” lauds Augusto Pinochet, the leader of the Chilean military who led a coup against Salvador Allende’s elected government in 1973, ushering in a reign of torture and repression that involved tossing political enemies from helicopters.
Pinochet-inspired helicopter memes have been common in the MAGA movement for years. And as the historian David Austin Walsh wrote last year, there has long been a cult of Franco on the right. . . .
. . . . [The Great American Counter Revolution] is achievable but only with the resolve of Franco and the thoroughness of [Senator Joseph] McCarthy.” . . . .
. . . . “Much like the United States founding fathers, Franco and his fellows saw themselves as rebels intended to overthrow a corrupt, tyrannical government that aided and abetted murder and rape as well as other repugnant sins” . . . .
Topics of Discussion and Analysis Include: The evolution of the milieu underlying Franco, Pinochet and the contemporary GOP from an international drug and weapons network inextricably linked with the intelligence community; The role of Chinese fascists under the Kuomintang including Tai Li and Tu Yueh Sheng in this network; The role of General Charles Willoughby in the development of this network; Links between this network and the assassination of JFK; Links between this network and the Bay of Pigs invasion; Nazi SS commando Otto Skorzeny’s networking with the Vatican and Giovanni Battista Montini, the Vatican’s secretary of state and later Pope Paul VI; The Vatican’s profound involvement with fascism; The role of Francisco Franco in financing an offshore, anti-Castro radio network operated by Texas oil magnate Clint Murchison; U.S. defense contractor Ling, Temco Vought’s ownership of the antennae used by Radio Nord; The suspicious death of CIA officer Gary Underhill, who allegedly committed suicide after fingering the intelligence/narcotics/weapons trafficking ring with the assassination of JFK, Underhill’s role editing Pentagon reports about Willoughby’s commando operations in Asia; Underhill’s role as (arguably) the CIA’s top expert on small arms; Fox News founder and kingpin Roger Ailes’ role with the Nixon, Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations; Ailes’ employment with the Coors media apparatus; The role of former Spanish prime minister Aznar in perpetuating the networks of Franco, Links between the SS/Vatican nexus and the Babi Yar massacres in Ukraine; The work of SS officials of the Vatican/SS nexus and the CIA; Review of Nicolae Malaxa’s role in financing the Rumanian Guard; Malaxa’s role in the empty corporate front Western Tube, whose mailing address was Bewley, Kroop and Nixon–Nixon’s law firm; Review of Valerian Trifa’s role with the Iron Guard and the GOP; (both Malaxa and Trifa are covered at length in AFA#2); General Motors head Alfred P. Sloan’s financial support for Malaxa’s railway in Rumania, that was used to transport victims of the Holocaust; Malaxa’s networking with Juan Peron and Otto Skorzeny; The Great Southwest Corporation’s absorption of Western Tube; The Great Southwest Corporation’s handling of Marina Oswald; Review of material in FTR#1222 concerning the roles of French fascists in the assassination of JFK; Numerous points of interest with the World Commerce Corporation; Numerous connections of this milieu with the narco-fascist regime of Chiang Kai-shek.
In this broadcast, we continue our discussion with the heroic Jim DiEugenio, selected by Oliver Stone to write the screenplay for his documentary JFK Revisited. Jim also wrote the book containing transcripts of both the two-hour and four-hour versions of the documentary and supplemental interviews.
The program begins with review of the manner in which our society is driven by visual events: the “crawl” at the end of the movie “JFK” led to the formation of the ARRB, in a manner analogous to how the airing of the Zapruder film on Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America led to the formation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
Next, we note that the ARRB staffers were people who did not believe that JFK’s assassination was a conspiracy, nor did they think that there was a cover-up.
Notable in the ARRB’s proceedings is the fact that neither CIA operations records nor Congressional records are accessible via FOIA requests.
Notable in the ARRB’s proceedings is the fact that neither CIA operations records nor Congressional records are accessible via FOIA requests.
In this regard, the ARRB was empowered in an important and unprecedented way.
Meeting resistance from then President–and former CIA chief–George H.W. Bush, the ARRB was not staffed until Clinton became President.
Judge Tunheim (of the ARRB) noted that various Federal Agencies felt that they could just wait out the ARRB until its mandated time had expired.
The board received extensions of its mandated time, although it still was not able to get all the documents released.
The extensions stretched out ARRB’s tenure to four years.
A telling incident occurred when Judge Tunheim and the ARRB was parsing a CIA document they wanted released. The Agency officer present stated that there was a reason that the document could not be released, but he just “couldn’t think of it.”
The CIA’s counsel, who was present, indicated that the ARRB could proceed as planned.
Of note is the fact that Judge Tunheim disclosed that George Joannides, who over saw Carlos Bringuier’s DRE for the CIA, had served as the Agency’s liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassinations and that the ARRB, as well as the HSCA, was misled in this regard.
As noted previously, researcher Jefferson Morley’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit directed at obliging CIA to disclose more information about Joannides was turned down by an appeals court, with Brett Kavanaugh casting a decisive vote, just before his nomination to the Supreme Court.
The CIA did release records about Lee Harvey Oswald, which had been in the province of the late James Jesus Angleton.
In our long series of interviews with Mr. DiEugenio about Destiny Betrayed, we noted that Harry Connick, who succeeded Jim Garrison as New Orleans DA, had ordered some of Garrison’s files to be burned.
Many were, however one of Connick’s assistants did not burn those records and kept the documents. Eventually, the ARRB got those documents.
Connick was not pleased.
Reviewing some of our synoptic discussion about Connick, from the written description for FTR#1050:
Key points of discussion and analysis about Connick:
1.–He was seemingly omnipresent in Clay Shaw’s criminal trial, operating to obstruct Garrison and aid Clay Shaw and the Federal Government, for which he worked.
2.–Station WDSU–very close to Clay Shaw and the vehicle for both the Walter Sheridan disinformation hit piece on Jim Garrison and the Ed Butler/Carlos Bringuier interview of the “Communist” Oswald–was active on behalf of Connick.
3.–The Gurvich brothers, who infiltrated Garrison’s investigation and networked with Clay Shaw’s defense team (with William appearing as a witness in the hearing on Shaw’s perjury trial), were active on behalf of Harry Connick.
4.–Clay Shaw himself, as well as DRE operative Carlos Bringuier contributed to Connick’s election campaign.
5.–In his second campaign to replace Garrison, Connick was successful.
6.–After becoming New Orleans DA, he burned many of Garrison’s files.
You can subscribe to RSS feed from Spitfirelist.com HERE. You can subscribe to the comments made on programs and posts–an excellent source of information in, and of, itself, HERE. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory’s entire life’s work is available on a 32GB flash drive, available for a contribution […]
In the latest Patreon talks, Mr. Emory highlights the economics of the Ukraine war, Walt Disney’s fascist manifestations, the intelligence community’s control of social media, the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, updates on Covid-19 as a bioweapon and numerous other subjects. Ukrainian television anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann verbatim in this video from UKRAINE 24. This video of Ukraine’s top military medical officer discussing an order to castrate Russian males is an eye-opener. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.
In the latest Patreon talks (three, one-hour talks peer week), we highlight the OUN/B affiliations of Ulana Suprun, Ukraine’s former Health Minister, and her possible relationship with the Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance, In-Q-Tel and Munich Re concatenation. In addition, we discuss the timing of Ivana Trump’s apparently accidental death, as well as the institutionalization of revisionist Japanese World War II history and that nation’s effect on U.S. biological warfare development. Ukrainian television anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann verbatim in this video from UKRAINE 24. This video of Ukraine’s top military medical officer discussing an order to castrate Russian males is an eye-opener. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.
This program continues analysis of the “Pandemics, Inc.” consortium of Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance, In-Q-Tel and Munich Re.
We note that Andrew C. Weber–a key executive of Metabiota–had an interesting background: ” . . . . He joined Metabiota in February 2016 as Head of Global Partnerships in the Government Business Unit. . . . He served until October 2014 as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs. . . .”
Weber was in that post at Metabiota when, in October of 2016, Metabiota initiated its projects in Ukraine.
Next, the program reviews an excerpting of a Wired Magazine article about the Metabiota/Munich Reinsurance project.
Bear in mind that In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA and the intelligence community, is greasing the wheels of this project with financing.
We highlight two key points of information:
1.–The business success of the pandemic insurance would necessarily incorporate analysis of the “fear factor” of potential pandemic pathogens: ” . . . . As sophisticated as Metabiota’s system was, however, it would need to be even more refined to incorporate into an insurance policy. The model would need to capture something much more difficult to quantify than historical deaths and medical stockpiles: fear. The economic consequences of a scourge, the historical data showed, were as much a result of society’s response as they were to the virus itself. . . . The Sentiment Index was built to be, as Oppenheim put it, ‘a catalog of dread.’ For any given pathogen, it could spit out a score from 0 to 100 according to how frightening the public would find it. . . . Madhav and her team, along with Wolfe and Oppenheim, also researched the broader economic consequences of disease outbreaks, measured in the ‘cost per death prevented’ incurred by societal interventions. ‘Measures that decreased person-to-person contact, including social distancing, quarantine, and school closures, had the greatest cost per death prevented, most likely because of the amount of economic disruption caused by those measures,’ they wrote in a 2018 paper. . . .”
2.–More sinister, still, is the fact that Metabiota had analyzed the scenario of a novel coronavirus pandemic two years before it happened. This appears to be the 2018 paper referred to above. Do not fail to note that, at the time that Metabiota was running this scenario, they were partnered with EcoHealth Alliance, which was using Pentagon and USAID money to research and perform gain-of-function on these types of coronaviruses!! ” . . . . As the human and economic devastation multiplied in tandem across the globe, Metabiota’s employees suddenly found themselves living inside their own model’s projections. Just two years earlier, the company had run a large set of scenarios forecasting the consequences of a novel coronavirus spreading around the globe. . . .”
Next, we review aspects of important article presents depth on a number of overlapping considerations about biological warfare, the Covid “op” and the Ukraine war.
Of particular importance, here, is H5N1’s potential significance of the In-Q-Tel, Metabiota, Munich Re pandemic insurance consortium.
In addition to the H5N1’s real or potential impact on businesses involved with one aspect or another of commercial poultry, the possibility that a weaponized/zoonotic mutation of the virus could spawn a devastating human pandemic could be a major driver of “fear” and the willingness of businesses to purchase pandemic insurance.
Key Points of Analysis and Discussion Include:
1.–” . . . . The emergence of the virus in 1997 in Hong Kong was eerily predicted by Kennedy Shortridge, the scientist who would discover it. H5N1 didn’t infect humans until Shortridge and his colleagues had been studying its human infection potential in their labs for several years. At the time, the natural leap of a flu directly from poultry to humans was so improbable that scientists first suspected that it was the result of contamination from Shortridge’s lab. . . .”
2.–Normally, H5N1 human infections are extremely rare: ” . . . . H5N1 hardly ever infects people. News about highly pathogenic avian influenza usually leads with how deadly it is. Rarely is it mentioned that the disease hardly ever infects people. H5N1 kills more than half of the people who get it, but H5N1 has circled the globe for decades and there have only ever been 860 human infections worldwide. . . .”
3.–More about how rare human infections are and the rise of avian infections in 2022: ” . . . . There has never been an H5N1 pandemic and no human infectionwith H5N1 bird flu has ever been identified in the U.S. That’s an extraordinary safety record, given how filthy U.S. factory farms and slaughterhouses are and how fast the infection spreads among crowded birds. So far in 2022, 29 states have reported outbreaks of bird flu in 213 flocks resulting in the culling of nearly 31 million birds, including almost 5 percent of egg-laying hens. In 2015, it was even worse with 50 million birds culled, but there wasn’t a single human case. . . .”
4.–” . . . . Anthony Fauci has made significant investments in gain-of-function research to give H5N1 pandemic potential, making it easily transmissible from person to person—and Bill Gates chipped in, too! . . .”
5.–” . . . . In February 2006, Fauci convened a one-day in-house ‘NIAID Influenza Research Summit’ to identify influenza research priorities. In September, he opened up the topic to a 35-member ‘Blue Ribbon Panel on Influenza Research’ that included Fouchier and Kawaoka. The Blue Ribbon panel’s report doesn’t mention gain-of-function experiments, but Fauci gave them grants to do just that. [Ron] Fouchier and [Yoshihiro] Kawaoka’s now infamous gain-of-function research showed that, through lab manipulation, H5N1 could be altered to become highly transmissible among humans via airborne infection. . . .”
6.–” . . . . The first human H5N1 outbreak occurred in Hong Kong in 1997, the year of what the British call the ‘Hong Kong handover,’ when sovereignty over Hong Kong was transferred from the U.K. to China. It was during this ‘politically sensitive’ year that Kennedy Shortridge, an Australian scientist who was the director of the World Health Organization’s reference laboratory at the University of Hong Kong, confirmed human cases of highly pathogenic bird flu. . . .”
7.–” . . . .The 1997 Hong Kong H5N1 virus was unique in every respect. Time magazine reported, ‘On the H gene at a point called the cleavage site, [was] found a telltale mutation, the same kind of mutation found in other highly pathogenic avian viruses. …The virus … had regions that were identical to portions of [an] avian virus that struck Pennsylvania [chickens] in 1983.” The L.A. Times reported, ‘The H5 piece came from a virus in a goose. The N1 piece came from a second virus in a quail. The remaining flu genes came from a third virus, also in quail.’ . . . .”
8.–” . . . . Shortridge had been studying how avian influenza viruses spread to humans since 1975. Prior to discovering H5N1, Shortridge eerily predicted its emergence. As Frank Ching reported in ‘Bird Flu, SARS and Beyond’: As early as 1982, Shortridge had labeled southern China, where humans and domestic animals lived in close proximity, ‘an epicenter for the origin of pandemics.’ Ten years later, he called southern China a ‘virus soup’ and warned that pandemic influenza was a zoonosis, that is, it could be transmitted from animals to humans and, in 1995, he warned that influenza in southern China could not properly be called an ’emerging’ infection because it was constantly lurking. ‘Elusive might be more apt,’ he wrote. . . .”
9.–” . . . . An example of Shortridge’s penchant for such predictions is his 1995 Lancet article “The next pandemic influenza virus?” Curiously, H5N1 emerged two years later, in 1997, in the same city where Shortridge worked, Hong Kong. . . .”
10.–” . . . . At the time, the natural leap of a flu directly from poultry to humans was thought to be so unlikely that scientists first suspected contamination from Shortridge’s lab was the cause of the highly improbable H5N1 diagnosis. How would that contamination happen unless Shortridge hadn’t already been working with H5N1 in the lab? . . .”
11.–” . . . . H5N1 didn’t cause disease in humans until this potential had been studied in a lab for several years. Fauci had been funding Kawaoka and Fouchier’s efforts to get bird flu to leap to humans since 1990 and their work was connected to what Shortridge was doing in Hong Kong. For seven years prior to the first human H5N1 outbreak in 1997, Fauci had been funding Kawaoka’s gain-of-function bird flu research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Kawaoka’s mentor there, Robert G. Webster, was working and publishing with Shortridge. Every year, Webster spent three months working with Shortridge at the University of Hong Kong, according to this profile of Webster which mentions Kawaoka as his protege. . . .”
12.–” . . . . The most eerie connection between Shortridge and Webster’s labs is that the closest known relative of the 1997 Hong Kong H5N1 was the avian virus that struck Pennsylvania chickens in 1983—that Yoshihiro Kawaoka had studied. According to Time magazine: Webster assigned a young scientist, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, to try to figure out how the [1983] virus transformed itself into such a ‘hot’ pathogen. Kawaoka, now a professor of virology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, compared the genetic structure of viruses from the first and second waves and found only a single, extremely subtle change in the H gene. The two viruses differed by just one nucleotide–one of 1,700 nucleotides that made up the gene. . . .”
13.–”. . . . There’s also a connection to Fouchier, through his mentor at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Jan De Jong, also a colleague and collaborator of Shortridge and Webster’s. . . .”
14.–” . . . . Kawaoka’s colleague and mentor Robert G. Webster and Fouchier’s colleague and mentor Jan De Jong were the first scientists outside of Hong Kong to receive samples of the 1997 H5N1 flu from Shortridge’s lab. . . .”
15.–” . . . . De Jong is often credited with being the one who identified the 1997 Hong Kong flu as H5N1, but he did so with ‘a panel of reagents to every type of flu strain yet known’ that had been brought from Webster’s lab in Memphis to the National Influenza Centre in Rotterdam. . . .”
16.–” . . . . Kawaoka and Fouchier are of post-Biological Weapons Convention era where the weaponization of pathogens is euphemistically called ‘gain-of-function’ research, but their older colleagues, De Jong, Shortridge and Webster came of age prior to 1972 and their mentors were of the pre-Biological Weapons Convention era when virologists knowingly and openly engineered viruses for military purposes. . . .”
17.–” . . . . Shortridge and Webster were trained by Frank Macfarlane Burnet who served on the Australian Department of Defence’s New Weapons and Equipment Development Committee in the 1940s and 50s. The Federation of American Scientists lists some of the most chilling things Burnet recommended: Burnet … said Australia should develop biological weapons that would work in tropical Asia without spreading to Australia’s more temperate population centres. . . .”
18.–Burnet’s observations: ” . . . . ‘Specifically to the Australian situation, the most effective counter-offensive to threatened invasion by overpopulated Asiatic countries would be directed towards the destruction by biological or chemical means of tropical food crops and the dissemination of infectious disease capable of spreading in tropical but not under Australian conditions.’ . . .”
18.–The broadcast notes a frightening relationship between Metabiota and the selection of Philip Zelikow to head a commission to determine the origin of Covid-19: ” . . . . In 2008, Google.org committed $30 million to virus hunting and gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens through a project it called Predict and Prevent. At least $5.5 million of that went to Dr. Nathan Wolfe’s non-profit Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, which was soon to become the for-profit Metabiota. Other GVFI funders at the time included the Skoll Foundation, which also gave $5.5 million, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Merck Research Laboratories and the US Department of Defense. . . .”
19.–” . . . . When the GVFI became the for-profit Metabiota, Google Ventures continued to invest. In addition, it created a business partnership with Metabiota, ‘offering its big-data expertise to help the company serve its customers–insurers, government agencies and other organizations–by offering them forecasting and risk-management tools.’ In other words, they sell pandemic insurance. . . .”
20.–”. . . . Now that Metabiota has gotten caught up in the COVID origins scandal, its original investors, Eric Schmidt of Google, Jeffrey Skoll of EBay, Rajiv Shah of The Rockefeller Foundation (formerly USAID director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) chipped in to fund the COVID Commission Planning Group, a white-wash led by Philip Zelikow who gave us the 9–11 Commission cover-up. . . .”
21.–In past programs, we have noted that David Franz, former head of the U.S.A.M.R.I.I.D at Fort Detrick was a key advisor to EcoHealthAlliance. Franz helped produce the encapsulated, weapons-grade anthrax used in the 2001 anthrax attacks: ” . . . . One of Metabiota’s PREDICT partners is EcoHealth Alliance, whose science and policy advisor, David Franz, produced the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks while working for Southern Research and partnering with scientists at Battelle. . . .”
The program concludes with discussion of Munich Re’s deep political association with the Third Reich, both in its initial, above-ground phase and in its role as a critical element of the remarkable, lethal Bormann capital association.
Recent Comments