Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 8/18

[SVPete]

Forbes Editor Who Threatened Firms Hiring Trump ‘Fabulists’ Fired After Secret $6M Payment

https://hotair.com/headlines/2026/08/17/forbes-editor-who-threatened-firms-hiring-trump-fabulists-fired-after-secret-6m-payment-n3818042

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane was fired after “the company discovered that he had received a payment of about $6 million from the founder of a firm that does business with the magazine.”

The payment was made after RJ Shook, the founder of the firm that worked with Forbes to publish wealth adviser rankings, “sold a majority stake in Shook Research to PPC Enterprises, ... .” Lane made himself a spectacle of anti-Trump furor in 2021 when he threatened companies that dared to hire people who formerly worked with President Donald Trump, such as former White House press secretaries Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, and Kayleigh McEnany.

Reading his virtue-signaling now about “truth reckoning” in light of his own duplicitous violation of journalistic ethics is poetic justice. ... Lane promised his outlet will “scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet” any company that hires one of the forbidden Trumpsters in his arbitrary blacklist: ...

The original source for what I double-quoted is Mediaite. Looking at the people Lane threatened mentioned by Mediaite, via W'pedia:

* Sean Spicer has been (and is), for several years, a contributor for cable network NewsNation, and cohosts "The Morning Meeting" daily podcast along with Mark Halperin and Dan Turrentine.

* Sarah Huckabee-Sanders was elected Governor of the State of Arkansas in 2022, an office she currently holds. Huckabee-Sanders is running for reelection; Governors of Arkansas are limited to two terms.

* Kayleigh McEnany has worked in various roles with Fox News. She also, after working with the Trump Administration, to her and her husband's first son and second daughter.

Whether Lane's threat was never intended to be more than empty virtue-signaling or a failed real threat, these three of his targets seem to have done rather well, post-Trump.

[SVPete]

Iran's Not-So-Subtle War on U.S. Morale and the Left's Abetting of It

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2026/08/18/irans-not-so-subtle-war-on-us-morale-n4956256

Earlier this month, a sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, deployed in the Persian Gulf, jumped overboard. Thankfully, he was rescued and helicoptered off the ship.

The sailor went overboard on August 3. On August 11, "Mehr News, a wire service of the Islamic Republic, reported a violent clash aboard USS Abraham Lincoln: seven dead, several wounded, an adviser to the CENTCOM commander booed and pelted with water bottles on the deck of America’s flagship in the Arabian Sea," writes Gregg Roman, executive director of the Mideast Forum. The source of the story was Tasnim, an outlet tied to the Revolutionary Guard, which cited one anonymous “informed military source.”

The story ran for two days before CENTCOM denied it; one sailor had gone overboard and been rescued. The story was an outrageous lie. But mainstream Western media outlets began reporting accounts from military spouses and other sources regarding suicide attempts aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, including a spouse detailing her husband's burnout and attempt to jump overboard. Stars and Stripes detailed interviews with military families expressing concerns about declining mental health and suicidal ideation among crew members during extended deployments, including a spouse relaying a message from a sailor expressing suicidal thoughts.
...
Of course, it's all Donald Trump's fault.

They must be dancing a jig in Tehran. As The Free Press's Elliot Abrams notes, suicides, suicidal ideation, and mental health problems are endemic to both active-duty and retired military. And it's strange that the "concern" of the media for the mental health of our military people has suddenly appeared when the story can be twisted into an attack on Trump and an unpopular war.
...
The Navy denied an increase in serious mental health problems aboard the Lincoln.

We have not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship. We take every service member's well-being seriously and have religious, medical and mental health professionals available to assess and address concerns as they arise. USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) has five Navy Chaplains, one clinical psychologist, one clinical social worker, three behavioral health technicians and an embedded integrated prevention coordination (EIPC) counselor. The ship also has an expeditionary facility dog, CAPT Fathom, to support crew morale and emotional welfare. These resources are available to Sailors and Marines throughout the Strike Group 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Roman explains the methodology of the disinformation.

The method takes the true kernel, tired crew, long deployment, worried families, and inflates it past recognition. “America’s floating prison at sea,” in the words of Iran’s embassy in Kenya, which decorated the phrase with an anonymous spouse’s quote lifted from Western press coverage and a graphic of a sailor behind bars. ...

"Lying by Exaggeration" would be a severe under-statement.