Effective liars know that since 85% of communication is facial expression and tone of voice with only 15% being attributable to words, they can convince people of their falsehoods while looking and sounding like they’re telling the truth.

Here is the YouTube version of my appearance on Melvin E. Edwards' excellent podcast, Stories from Real Life, that aired earlier this week. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lglm...

My new book has now been released and is available on Amazon! www.amazon.com/Ties-That-Bl...

The best liars sound confident and dogmatic while lying. And the more they believe their own lies, the more confident they sound.

Lying with confident gusto seems to be all the rage these days.

Today, evil masquerades as righteousness & millions believe the ruse. But then, such masquerades are as old as the Bible.

It’s a dangerous thing to convince yourself the lies you tell are true so you’ll feel no shame when you lie.

A coerced Christianity is fake Christianity because the real one doesn’t spread itself through coercion.

Trump is a pyromaniac who pretends to be a fire chief. He starts the very fires he claims to extinguish.

The back cover of my soon-to-be-released book, Ties That Blind

For some today, if truth gets in the way of acquiring the necessary power to fight for “truth,” then lying is justified. That’s moral relativism.

In 2025: 1-If you lose, say you won 2-Never admit a wrong 3-Lie shamelessly 4-If caught lying, accuse the accuser of lying 5-If emergency is required to justify excessive power, declare an emergency 6-Label any opposition as inciting violence 7-If your leader does 1-6, stay silent

Gaslighting is when someone tells you to trust them and not your own eyes & ears. Gaslit people are anxious people. We’re an anxious nation.

“Saying something obviously untrue and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice is a particularly startling display of power over them. It’s something that was endemic to totalitarianism." Hannah Arendt, 1951

We’re seeing that one can acquire vast amounts of wealth through virtual currencies and vast amounts of power by fighting virtual enemies.

When one has the power to alter reality to be whatever he needs it to be and people believe his alteration, he has ungodly power.

“The act of concession changes you,” wrote Will Saletan. “You don’t just learn how to bend. You also learn how to tell yourself that you never really bent." Quoted in my upcoming book, Ties That Blind

Authoritarians understand that if you can control what people believe is true, you can control the people.

SOON TO BE RELEASED

ICYMI…

The more authoritarians can cast “them” demonic, the more their followers will cede them power. It’s an old trick.

"Stories need not be true to be embraced by those who need them to be true." from my upcoming book, Ties that Blind

No one should be killed for their political views. What happened to Charlie Kirk today reflects the darker angels of our nature. So sad for his family.

In 2025 America, ceding near unchecked power to a central leader is called “conservative” and a might-makes-right morality is called “Christian.”

COMING THIS FALL "Evidence-free assertions work remarkably well among those inclined to believe them."

TO BE RELEASED THIS FALL

“We need to stop trusting the experts,” says RFK, Jr. with air quotations. But why should we trust his expertise more than the experts? The question is not, “Have you done your own research?” Rather, “Whose research are you willing to trust?” Thanks, but I’ll trust the experts.

Fearing concentration of power in a king-like figure, the founders wrote the Constitution with a future Donald Trump in mind.

A must read. A MUST read: www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

"Evidence-free assertions work remarkably well among those inclined to believe them." from my upcoming book, Ties That Blind

The essence of evil is to commit evil acts while convinced you commit them to fight for right, and no one can convince you otherwise.

The Trumpian way: 1-Deny the reality that is 2-Create the reality you want 3-Propagate your reality dogmatically, repeatedly and confidently 4-Reject any evidence or stats that dispute your reality 5-Insist that all rejectors live in unreality 6-Tomorrow, do 1-5 all over again

Collective delusion is a powerful anesthetic for those who use it but leaves those around them languishing in pain.” —from my upcoming book Ties That Blind

If Trump had a complete mental breakdown characterized by delusions of grandeur, paranoid ideation and nonsensical speech, how would we know?

Like nitro and glycerin, ignorance and arrogance are an explosive combination.

In 2025, state power, a centralized economy, crackdowns on free speech, and support for authoritarian regimes is called “conservatism.” Cruelty, relativism, arrogance, and support for an authoritarian leader is called “Christianity.”

Trump salivates for a Nobel Peace Prize. He could care about the peace, just wants the prize.

"Both courage and cowardice are contagious so we should be careful which we spread." --from my upcoming book, Ties That Blind: Unraveling the Stories That Keep Us in the Dark

What’s been highlighted in 2025 is this: People will embrace a leader’s tyranny if he can convince them he’s fighting against tyranny.

Authoritarians create alternate realities where deceit is called honesty, cruelty is called strength, evil is called righteousness, revisionist history is called history, and authoritarianism is called necessary to beat back the evil insiders trying to control us.