Howard Johns' Drowning Sorrows: A True Story of Love, Passion and Betrayal is available on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited. It covers Natalie Wood, William Holden, Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner.

For those who don't know, Natalie Wood and William Holden were two big movie stars. Robert Wagner was a TV actor and Stefanie Powers appeared in films and TV becoming famous on TV.

Natalie Wood was married to Robert Wagner. Twice. Stefanie Powers had a long term relationship with William Holden that started in the mid-70s and lasted until a year before his death.

The book's readable -- which puts it ahead of a lot of others on Kindle Unlimited. Is it accurate?

I'm not sure.

Stefanie Powers was not famous until Hart To Hart (1979). The book tells you she became a star with The Girl From Uncle in the 60s. No. She didn't. It lasted one season and was axed for low ratings. She did a lot of guest roles on TV. She wasn't a star or famous.

I liked her. I wasn't old enough to see The Girl From Uncle. But when I was a kid, she did a show Feather and Father Gang. It was an hour long show. It aired on ABC. My local ABC kept interrupting it. I loved that show and loved it so much that my grandmother called me one Saturday afternoon to say turn on the TV! My local ABC was showing that week's episode on Saturday afternoon.

After that short-lived show, I paid attention to Stefanie. I loved it when Die! Die! My Darling would be on TV. It was a 60s movie she made where Tallulah Bankhead terrorizes her because Stefanie was engaged to her late son (and now Stefanie's going to get married).

Robert Wagner was her co-star in Hart To Hart. TV was where he found success. He bombed as a star in film after film. Even A Kiss Before Dying bombed in real time. No one took him seriously because he couldn't act. In TV, he coasted. So it worked for him with It Takes A Thief and Switch and then Hart To Hart. That was the end of it all. His looks were fading by Hart To Hart and that's what he'd coasted on his whole life. His waist had thickened, the face was bloated and it only got worse with each year.

Natalie Wood caught Wagner in bed with a man and that ended their first marriage. She was willing to put up with more when they remarried in the 70s. But, in the book, Wagner comes across as treacherous and deceitful and a betrayer -- and all of that's long before the boat trip where Natalie disappears and ends up dead.

She was a film legend. She was rich. Wagner was not rich -- he was broke and in debt when he remarried Natalie Wood. He was not a film legend. He wasn't even a TV legend. He married her (for the second time) and was rich. He used her and he had a TV movie (The Affair) at a time when he couldn't get any work. Because of The Affair, because the producers wanted Natalie for the project (she'd never done a TV movie before), they were offered half of a future Spelling-Goldberg series and S-G would develop a show for them. The latter was Hart To Hart. It was supposed to star Natalie and Robert but he didn't want to share the project with her. He didn't want her to do anything.

He was jealous of her. And he was mad that she was doing Brainstorm and working with Christopher Walken. The author quotes a fight between the two where Natalie hints that Chris is Wagner's type.

What happened?

Who knows?

But it's clear to me that Wagner lied from the moment he announced Natalie had 'disappeared.' He lied. He prevented the authorities from being notified. He prevented a search from taking place when it could have turned up a living Natalie Wood.

He killed her. He may have pushed her off the boat, she may have slipped. Doesn't matter. He knew she was in the ocean and he knew she couldn't swim. He let her drown.

He's a murderer. Read the book, I recommend it.

Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, November 12, 2021. Still not official results from the October 10th election as tensions remain high.

BBC NEWS notes the tensions in Iraq -- and that these tensions have been going on for weeks, since the October 10th elections.

And, yes, there is still no official, final result for the October 10th elections. Anna Foster observes in her BBC NEWS report above, "It feels like the next big flashpoint we'll be when those results are finally announced."

"A drone crashed down on his [Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kahdimi] house."

Not quite as alarmist as so many have pimped it -- including Joe Biden. David Gardner's column for THE FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON reads like he was wetting his pants while he wrote it. Maybe his shaking in fear explains his loose grip on reality? That would explain nonsense like this:

The Iraqi paramilitaries had a good run after the Sunni jihadis of Isis erupted back into Iraq in 2014 and swept aside a national army hollowed out by corruption and sectarianism despite billions of dollars in US aid and training. They joined up with the more than 100,000-strong Popular Mobilisation Forces, blessed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s spiritual leader, as Isis pressed south towards Baghdad and the Shia shrine cities of Najaf and Kerbala. They claimed credit for halting the jihadist drive and for later seizing back disputed territory from Iraq’s self-ruling Kurds. But they did not dissolve their power structures, even taking control of the PMF as successive governments struggled to rein them in.

I'm sorry, what? You're going by the disgraced NEW YORK TIMES journalist who was eating with the militias, being taken home to their parents home and supposedly putting out for them while she was raving over them in that paper of misrecord.

Other than her crazy ravings -- that we called out in real time (while others were praising her lies -- that reality doesn't exist.

Mosul. Not a success story but let's pretend it is. What drove ISIS out? The same people that let them escape to Syria. The US government.

If you don't get that, maybe stay out of the conversation.

Mosul is in ruins -- physically in ruins.

From ISIS?

No.

From the militias?

No.

From the Iraqi military?

No.

From US war planes that bombed Mosul repeatedly. Those bombings -- and the offer of passage to Syria -- is what led ISIS to finally leave Mosul.

I'm sorry did Rukmini con you on that too? THE NEW YORK TIMES removed her from the beat because of her lies. She was reassigned (finally) to education. Check out her Twitter feed and you'd never know it. It's hilarious to read that feed for a 'reporter' who is supposedly covering US education.

Mosul is in ruins and it is in ruins because it was bombed over and over and over. That was US war planes. The argument is that they were driving ISIS out. ISIS occupied Mosul, they seized control of the city in 2014. In June of 2015, in July of 2016 it's declared liberated by then-Prime Minister Hayder al-Abadi. Mosul remains in ruins.

ISIS didn't leave Iraq. Many in Mosul went to Syria. And even THE NEW YORK TIMES reported on it (Eric Schmidt and Rod Norland were the reporters):

But that American line in the sand was wiped away with a telephone call last Friday from Russian military headquarters in Syria to American headquarters in Baghdad. Russia asked the United States to remove aerial reconnaissance over the convoy, which both sides knew would allow the convoy to proceed.

The request was part of what the military calls “deconfliction,” a process to make sure the Russian-backed Syrian forces and the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces do not inadvertently attack one another while both are trying to battle ISIS.

The militias were on the ground in Mosul. You can find video news reports of them . . . yelling at women in Mosul, ordering them no how to dress or how not to dress, accosting women on the streets of Mosul. You can find plenty of that. SO I would never deny that they were on the ground. I did -- in real time -- question the wisdom of them being in that area considering the ethnic and religious beliefs of the militias -- the same ethnic and religious bleiefs that were now dominant in Baghdad and had made the bulk of Christians in Baghdad flee to Mosul for sanctuary before ISIS took over. They terrorized the people of Mosul. It's what militias do. They enforce by terror.

Let's stop pretending that the victory in Mosul was due to those amazing militias. And let's get honest that the so-called 'victory' that happened in 2016 is an abject failure when, in 2021, Mosul still ies in ruins.

Don't worry though, the oil-rich government of Iraq continues to beg the world for money to repairs Mosul.

Just as that government doesn't want to spend money to make the lives of Iraqis across the country better, it doesn't want to spend money to improve Mosul. No, all the money that can be grabbed will continue to be shoved into the pocket of crooked politicians and officials.

Anchal Vhora (ORF) offers a look into Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr:

A firebrand Shiite cleric and America’s old foe, Muqtada al-Sadr, has emerged as the strongest political leader in Iraq after his bloc garnered the highest number of seats in the general elections last week. He backed the Sairoon list of candidates who scored a total of 75 seats—20 more than the last elections in 2018.

Muqtada al-Sadr, 47, is the son of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was a stalwart opposition figure in Iraqi politics during Saddam Hussein’s time and was allegedly assassinated on Hussein’s orders.

Soon after America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, Muqtada capitalised on the family name and formed a militia called Mahdi army to challenge the American troops. The same militia was also accused of massacring Sunnis at one point in a sectarian conflict.

Over the last several years, since he disbanded the militia and formed what he called ‘peace brigades,’ the cleric has brandished himself as a nationalist—opposed to both American presence and Iran’s influence exerted by militias and political groups that it backs. Sadr has also gained support amongst communists and Sunnis in the country by promising jobs and an end to corruption.

Soon after the results were announced, Sadr addressed the concerns of the masses regarding economic deterioration of the war-ravaged country, whilst the political elite squabbled over personal gains and split them on sectarian bases.

“It is the day of the victory of reform over corruption. The day of the people’s victory over occupation, normalisation, militias, poverty, injustice, and enslavement,” he said. “It is a day when sectarianism, ethnicity, and partisanship were defeated. It is the day of Iraq and we are the servants of the Iraqi people.”

While Sadr’s candidates increased the tally, Iran-backed Fatah Alliance faced a drubbing in the elections. It saw its parliament seats reduced from 48 in 2018 to between 12–14 this time.

Fatah Alliance, also referred to as the Conquest Alliance, is a coalition of Iran-backed militias called Hashd al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) which fought the terrorist organisation, ISIS, and later became a part of Iraq’s army. In 2018, Fatah was formed to fight elections with the idea of converting gains in the battlefield into success in the political arena. It is led by Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr organisation, the most powerful militia backed by Iran.

Well, she tried to offer a look at him. You can't blame her for his thin resume which, other than "Daddy's boy who inherited his role," doesn't really contain much.

Mohanad Hage Ali offers, at Carnegie Middle East Center, this take:

Indeed, the recent elections in Iraq may represent a cautionary tale for Hezbollah. There, Iran’s allies lost seats, something that Nasrallah certainly does not want to replicate in Lebanon. That could well push Hezbollah to ensure that the country takes a rain check on its democratic process, or what’s left of it, come March of next year.

We'll wind down with this from BURN PITS 360

We'll always keep our oath to fight for our veterans...

Friend -- first off, Happy Veterans Day and we thank you for supporting our organization and keeping in touch with us. When we talk to veterans, many don't consider themselves heroes, but simply doing their duty as Americans. We here at Burn Pits 360 beg to differ -- they are our heroes. Which is why we started this organization over a decade ago in our home, to which it has grown to national levels because of supporters like yourself, Jon Stewart, Jon Feal, and the countless volunteers and advocates that we work with on a daily basis.

Burn Pits 360 Volunteers strategizing in Washington DC

Veterans Day is much more meaningful to us because of the many who stand with us in our fight to improve the lives of those who have served. If you would like to continue supporting our efforts, please consider making a contribution to our organization today.

BREAKING: PRESIDENT BIDEN ANNOUNCES EFFORTS TO SUPPORT VETERANS SUFFERING FROM BURN PITS -- BUT IT ISN'T ENOUGH.

11/11/21

Today on this Veterans Day, President Biden announced his efforts to "better understand, treat and identify medical conditions suffered by troops deployed to toxic environments."

Biden's efforts include:

Developing and testing a model for establishing service connection.
Adding new presumptive conditions.
Applying new model to review evidence of service connection for rare respiratory cancers and constrictive bronchiolitis.
Improving data on individual exposures.
Raising awareness of VA benefits related to military exposures.
Expanding training for VA and non-VA providers.
Establishing network of specialized providers and call center.
Extending eligibility period for VA health care.

While we are encouraged to see President Biden take steps today to improve the lives of our veterans suffering from burn pits exposure -- this isn't enough and we're running out of time.

Just recently, we lost our good friend Staff Sgt. Wesley Black -- who was featured on the panel for Jon Stewart's Apple + TV Show, "The Problem With..." -- and numerous veterans like longtime Burn Pits 360 advocate and veterans like Will Thompson (pictured below) are running out of time also because the United States Government wants to be in a never ending cycle of "improving their understanding" of the issue rather than taking direction action based off the data and science already proven by numerous epidemiologist and medical experts, as well as the countless death of our veterans.

Veterans won't continue to be used as political pawns for politicians to flaunt around for their political careers. We need life-saving action for veterans NOW!

Thank you for your continued support and we hope you and your loved ones enjoy and celebrate our veterans today.

All our best,
Your friends here at Burn Pits 360

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