Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn just lit a political fuse in Washington, and he did it without the usual polish, filters, or permission slips from the professional class. His message was not aimed at cable news panels or think tank donors. It was aimed straight at the heart of power, including a direct challenge to President Trump himself.
Flynn’s message, posted on X, reads like something the political establishment fears most, an unvarnished statement of anger from Americans who believe the system has been rigged against them for decades. Writing on behalf of what he calls “a very frustrated 79 million Americans,” Flynn formally declared 2026 as “THE YEAR OF ACCOUNTABILITY.” Not reform. Not reconciliation. Accountability.
This was not Beltway talk. It was raw and confrontational, and that is precisely why it resonated. Flynn laid out a grim but familiar picture. Freedoms chipped away in plain sight. A federal government that has grown bloated, arrogant, and immune to consequences. Bureaucrats and agencies hoarding power while everyday citizens are treated like an inconvenience. Public trust, he argued, has not just declined but been obliterated.
What really stands out is that Flynn did not frame this as a Republican versus Democrat fight. He explicitly rejected that framing. His argument is that Americans across the spectrum are fed up with being lied to, censored, gaslit, and told to forget what they watched happen with their own eyes. He made it clear that people remember what was done, they know who did it, and they are done being told to move on for the sake of “unity.”
The message also zeroed in on cultural decay, something most politicians prefer to dodge. Flynn pointed to civic duty disappearing from classrooms, replaced by ideology and obedience. He called out the systematic weakening of the family, once the backbone of the nation, now treated as an obstacle rather than a foundation.
Then came the part that made Washington squirm. Flynn addressed President Trump directly and posed a question that cannot be danced around. Will you stand with We the People, or will you protect the system that failed us? That is not a question designed for applause lines. It is a demand.
Flynn even warned about legacy, invoking the Founders’ concern that concentrated power leads to corruption and eventually tyranny. If accountability is avoided, he argued, history will not be kind.
This message did not come from a pundit chasing relevance. It came from someone who has seen the inside of the machine and is clearly done pretending it can be fixed with slogans. Whether Washington likes it or not, millions of Americans see themselves in Flynn’s words. They are not asking politely anymore. They are demanding consequences.
2026, if Flynn is right, will not be about personalities. It will be about reckoning.
Inside the mind of a liar is not just a story—but a struggle. A person wrestling with reality. A brain bending the world, hoping it won’t snap.
Just think if a person relates the facts – how easy it is to relate it? If you tell a lie – you then have to adjust that lie to the facts. When a person does that over and over – he/she eventually gets caught up in that web. If you tell the truth about a fact – then you never have to worry.
It begins small. A little boy drops a glass and blames the cat. A teenager says she studied for the test, but didn’t. A man tells a friend he’s fine, even though his heart is broken. A woman tells her boss she’s on her way—though she’s still in her pajamas.
Deception weaves its way through everyday life. We do it to avoid shame, to save face, to gain advantage, to protect others, to feel safe. Most of the time, we don’t even notice we’re doing it. But beneath the surface, each lie—no matter how tiny or towering—leaves fingerprints on the mind.
To understand deception is to peer into one of the most complex and mysterious aspects of human psychology. It is not just about falsehood. It is about strategy, memory, emotion, fear, control, and even survival.
Lying is ancient. It is wired into our evolutionary history. And though it might be easy to judge liars from the outside, the real story unfolds deep inside the brain.
The Origins of Deception: Born to Lie?
Before we explore the inner workings of a liar’s mind, we must face a startling truth: the capacity for deception begins in childhood, often earlier than most people expect.
Infants as young as six months have been observed in experimental settings to feign distress to attract caregiver attention. By age two, toddlers can deliberately mislead. At age four or five, children develop what psychologists call theory of mind—the understanding that other people have beliefs, desires, and knowledge different from one’s own. This milestone is crucial for intentional lying.
The emergence of lying coincides with cognitive development. To lie, a child must juggle multiple mental tasks: invent a story, remember what’s been said, suppress the truth, and anticipate the reaction of others. It’s a kind of mental juggling act—and not a simple one.
Ironically, a child’s first lie is often a sign not of moral decay, but of mental sophistication. It marks the point where imagination, memory, and empathy collide.
What Happens in the Brain When We Lie?
Telling the truth is easy. It’s a direct retrieval of memory. But lying? That’s mental gymnastics.
Modern neuroscience offers extraordinary tools for peering into the brain as deception unfolds. Functional MRI (fMRI) scans and EEG readings have shown that lying activates multiple brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and parietal lobes.
The prefrontal cortex is the executive center—the brain’s CEO. It handles planning, decision-making, and impulse control. To construct a believable lie, this region must suppress the truth and generate an alternative scenario. The anterior cingulate cortex, meanwhile, manages conflict detection. It lights up when our internal moral compass clashes with dishonest behavior.
This internal conflict is critical. It’s what causes physical signs of stress—fidgeting, sweating, voice pitch changes. It’s also why lying can be mentally exhausting.
But here’s the catch: not all lies feel bad. With practice, people can become desensitized to deception. Over time, the emotional and neurological “cost” of lying diminishes. This is how compulsive liars are born—not in a single moment, but through the slow erosion of conscience.
The Sliding Scale of Lies
Not all lies are created equal.
Some are harmless, even helpful. These are the so-called white lies—the kind we tell to protect feelings or maintain social harmony. “You look great in that outfit.” “I loved your presentation.” “I’m not mad.”
Then there are strategic lies, used to gain an advantage or manipulate outcomes. Politicians, negotiators, poker players—many rely on subtle forms of deception to achieve their goals.
And, of course, there are malicious lies—intended to harm, mislead, or destroy. These lies are heavy with intention and often rooted in deeper psychological dysfunctions, including narcissism, psychopathy, or unresolved trauma.
Understanding a liar means understanding their motive. Was it fear? Gain? Habit? Compassion? Self-image? The psychology of lying cannot be painted with one brush. Every falsehood tells a story, not just about what happened, but about why someone wanted to change the version of reality they shared.
Who Lies, and How Often?
You might think you’re an honest person—and perhaps you are. But research suggests we all bend the truth more than we’d like to admit.
A groundbreaking study by psychologist Robert Feldman found that people lie in about one in every five interactions lasting more than ten minutes. That’s not to say every lie is dramatic. Most are small exaggerations or omissions. But they’re still distortions.
Interestingly, people tend to lie more in certain contexts—job interviews, dating scenarios, social media posts. These are environments where impression management is crucial. We lie to look better, smarter, kinder, more successful.
But there’s a darker truth too: a small percentage of people tell the majority of lies. In one study, just 5% of participants were responsible for nearly 50% of all lies told. These individuals, often labeled prolific liars, tend to have distinct psychological profiles. They’re often more manipulative, less empathetic, and more comfortable with risk.
The Brain’s Emotional Load of Lying
Lying isn’t just a cognitive event—it’s an emotional one.
When we lie, especially about something meaningful, our body responds. Heart rate increases. Breathing changes. Pupils dilate. The body perceives lying as a stressor because it involves fear of detection and the guilt of dishonesty.
This emotional burden is what makes polygraphs (lie detectors) possible, though far from perfect. Polygraphs measure physiological signs of stress, not deception directly. And while they can sometimes detect lies, they’re also vulnerable to false positives. Anxious truth-tellers may be flagged, while practiced liars may fly under the radar.
The emotional weight of lying is also why confessions—real ones—often come with visible relief. The brain, no longer juggling conflicting realities, breathes easier when the truth is finally spoken.
Pathological Liars: When the Truth Becomes Alien
Pathological lying, also known as pseudologia fantastica, is a rare but deeply perplexing phenomenon. These individuals lie compulsively and often without clear motive. Their fabrications are elaborate, dramatic, and sometimes fantastical.
For pathological liars, the boundary between reality and fiction blurs. In some cases, they believe their own lies. In others, they lie knowing the truth, but unable to stop.
Brain scans of compulsive liars have shown increased white matter in the prefrontal cortex. This may suggest enhanced connectivity between brain regions—giving liars an edge in crafting stories and thinking on their feet. But it also hints at a possible structural difference in moral regulation.
Pathological lying often co-occurs with personality disorders, particularly narcissistic, antisocial, and histrionic personality disorders. In these cases, lying serves deeper psychological needs—attention, control, or manipulation.
Lying to Ourselves: The Art of Self-Deception
Perhaps the most profound lies are not the ones we tell others—but the ones we tell ourselves.
Self-deception is a psychological survival mechanism. It allows us to maintain a coherent self-image in the face of conflicting truths. “He didn’t mean to hurt me.” “I’m fine on my own.” “I could quit anytime.” “They just don’t understand me.”
These lies are comforting. They soften pain, blur guilt, and bolster confidence. Evolutionary psychologists suggest self-deception may have offered an adaptive advantage. If we believe our own lies, we become more convincing to others. Confidence—true or not—can be a powerful social tool.
But self-deception is a double-edged sword. It can protect mental health in the short term but distort reality in the long run. It keeps people in toxic relationships. It blinds them to destructive habits. It delays healing.
Inside the mind of a self-deceiver is a hall of mirrors—every reflection distorted just enough to make life feel manageable.
Spotting a Lie: Myths vs. Reality
Think liars always fidget or avoid eye contact? Think again.
Popular culture has filled our minds with myths about how deception looks. But research paints a more complex picture. Good liars often maintain eye contact. They don’t sweat profusely or shift nervously. They can appear calm, charming, and utterly sincere.
What truly differentiates a lie is cognitive load—the mental effort required to fabricate a believable story. Liars may pause more to think. Their stories may lack detail or sound too rehearsed. They may have trouble recalling their lies later. Their emotional expressions may not quite match the content of their words.
But there is no universal “tell.” Lie detection is a skill honed over time, and even trained professionals like FBI agents and psychologists are only slightly better than chance in detecting deception.
Ironically, the best liars are often the ones who believe their lies—or don’t feel guilty telling them. Without emotional leakage, the lie becomes almost indistinguishable from the truth.
Digital Lies: Deception in the Age of the Internet
In the digital era, lying has taken on new forms. Social media profiles are curated façades. Online dating apps are filled with selective truths. Deepfakes and AI-generated content blur the line between reality and illusion.
Online anonymity emboldens deception. People say things behind screens they would never say face-to-face. Cyber deception includes catfishing, identity fraud, fake news, and phishing scams. The consequences range from hurt feelings to financial ruin.
What makes online deception especially insidious is its scale and speed. A lie can reach millions in minutes. False information spreads faster than corrections. Our brains, designed for face-to-face interaction, struggle to navigate these new digital landscapes.
This raises urgent ethical and psychological questions: How do we cultivate honesty in a world of filters and avatars? What happens to our trust in reality when everything can be faked?
Can Lying Be Good?
Despite its bad reputation, lying is not always morally wrong. In some cases, it is even necessary.
Consider the doctor who softens the truth to ease a dying patient’s fear. The friend who hides a surprise party. The freedom fighter who deceives a regime to protect others.
Psychologists call this prosocial lying—deception motivated by kindness, protection, or social harmony. In fact, studies show people prefer to be lied to in certain situations, especially when the truth would cause unnecessary harm.
Ethical philosophers wrestle with this dilemma. Is it better to lie and protect, or tell the truth and hurt? The answer often depends on context, intention, and consequence.
The Future of Lies: AI, Neuroethics, and Truth Engineering
As neuroscience and artificial intelligence evolve, we may soon face radical new questions about deception.
Will brain scans become advanced enough to detect lies reliably? Could we engineer honesty through brain stimulation or genetic editing? Could AI systems detect micro-signals of deception that humans miss? Should they?
The future of truth may not rest on human conscience alone. It may become technological, regulated, even commodified.
But until that day, the human mind will remain the ultimate battleground of honesty and deceit—a theatre where truth and fiction play out in equal measure.
The Mirror in the Mind
In the end, to lie is to be human. We do it out of fear, love, ambition, and pain. We do it to survive. To belong. To shape how others see us. But every lie, big or small, leaves a trace inside the mind.
It demands memory, emotional control, ethical negotiation. It shapes our character and reveals our values.
The psychology of deception is not about villains and saints. It is about the fragile, fascinating dance between truth and identity.
Again, because inside the mind of a liar is not just a story—but a struggle. A person wrestling with reality. A brain bending the world, hoping it won’t snap.
It is time for Mr. Poynter/Jones to put himself in the President’s shoes and walk in the sun shine instead of the rain. Is he man enough to do that?
The left media has been employed by the Biden/Obama administration for “OH” how many years – because inside the mind of a liar is not just a story—but a struggle. A person wrestling with reality. A brain bending the world, hoping it won’t snap.
The Future of Lies: AI, Neuroethics, and Truth Engineering
As neuroscience and artificial intelligence evolve, we may soon face radical new questions about deception.
Will brain scans become advanced enough to detect lies reliably? Could we engineer honesty through brain stimulation or genetic editing? Could AI systems detect micro-signals of deception that humans miss? Should they?
The future of truth may not rest on human conscience alone. It may become technological, regulated, even commodified.
But until that day, the human mind will remain the ultimate battleground of honesty and deceit—a theatre where truth and fiction play out in equal measure.
The Mirror in the Mind
In the end, to lie is to be human. We do it out of fear, love, ambition, and pain. We do it to survive. To belong. To shape how others see us. But every lie, big or small, leaves a trace inside the mind.
It demands memory, emotional control, ethical negotiation. It shapes our character and reveals our values.
The psychology of deception is not about villains and saints. It is about the fragile, fascinating dance between truth and identity.
Because inside the mind of a liar is not just a story—but a struggle. A person wrestling with reality. A brain bending the world, hoping it won’t snap.
This is The Poynter Report, your daily guide to the news about news. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every weekday.
Some days it feels like a decade. Some days, even longer.
But it has been only one year. Just one year.
Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House. And what a year it has been.
Where do we even start? Well, for this newsletter, we start with Trump’s assault on the media.
He has banned the well-respected Associated Press from certain events simply over his pettiness about the name of the Gulf of Mexico. He has sued (and threatened to sue) media organizations such as CBS, The New York Times and the BBC. His administration has kicked reporters out of the Pentagon for refusing to report on anything except the force-fed propaganda of the Defense Department. His administration has defunded public media and tried to gut the Voice of America. His appointees have tried to silence late-night talk show hosts over jokes.
Trump, himself, has consistently and constantly insulted individual reporters and the media as a whole whenever he sees coverage he doesn’t like.
That’s just a portion of Trump’s battle with the press.
He and his administration have done so much damage that Poynter started something called the Freedom Press Watch just to track all the ways in which Trump has carried out his assault on one of the pillars of our democracy. Trump’s conduct appears to be following the blueprint of Project 2025. My Poynter colleague Angela Fu wrote about this at the end of last month: “Here’s how many of Project 2025’s media proposals were implemented in 2025.”
Meanwhile, so much else has happened that the news cycle for the past 12 months has become an overwhelming fire hose, leaving Americans constantly asking, “Did you see what Trump said/did/posted today?”
The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Rector wrote, “11 stunning moves by Trump in his first year back in office.” (What, only 11?) The list includes pardoning the Jan. 6 rioters, deposing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, instigating tariff wars, declaring the end to birthright citizenship and the current Trump story du jour: threatening to take Greenland.
Mind you, this is just a handful of things Trump has done.
Rector wrote that Americans “have watched Trump once again take stunning and unprecedented action — sometimes in line with his campaign promises, other times in direct conflict with them.”
Meanwhile, The Atlantic published several pieces marking the first anniversary of Trump taking office. Most notably, Ashley Parker writes, is “Trump Exhaustion Syndrome.” Parker writes in her piece, “Among the greatest tricks Donald Trump ever pulled is convincing significant portions of the population that the slow erosion of their rights is not, actually, that big of a deal.”
Parker adds, “A year into Trump’s second term, the emboldened president’s maximalist strategy—pushing every norm to its most elastic, and then a bit beyond, and from that new breaking point pushing yet again—conjures the boiling-frog theory, in which a frog placed in boiling water will immediately hop out, but a frog placed in cool water that is slowly heated will complacently boil to death.”
“And yet,” Jerecic writes, “the prognosis for democracy in the United States is far better today than it was at the start of Trump’s second term, when Elon Musk’s DOGE was stripping the federal government for parts and even normally sober observers began talking seriously about the constitutional crises that would follow if Trump defied the Supreme Court. Since then, American democracy has started to show signs of life: The popularity Trump enjoyed after the election has vanished, protesters have marched in record numbers to oppose his one-man rule, and citizens have shown up to defend their neighbors from immigration enforcement and other federal forces. That bravery has helped encourage opposition politicians to take more and more forceful stands. District judges, meanwhile, continue to throw up roadblocks to the president’s plans.”
Jerecic adds, “None of this means that American democracy as we know it will survive—especially given the threat of Trump’s potential interference in the 2026 and 2028 elections—but it has a pulse.”
Franklin Foer profiled 50 individual federal employees, both civilian and military, who were either fired or forced out by the Trump administration last year for “The Purged.”
The New York Times’ editorial board has a stunning piece: “How Trump Has Pocketed $1,408,500,000.” The presentation is especially provocative, as are the board’s words.
The board details how Trump has collected so much money over the past year, adding, “A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow.”
The board concludes, “The demands of avarice gradually corrupt the work of government as officials facilitate the accumulation of personal wealth. Worse, such a government corrupts the people who live under its rule. They learn by experience that they live in a society where the laws are written by the highest bidder. They become less likely to obey those laws, and to participate in the work of democracy — speaking, voting, paying taxes. The United States risks falling into this cynical spiral as Mr. Trump hollows out the institutions of government for personal gain.”
Trump spoke to the media Tuesday from the White House briefing room. He reflected on the first year of his second presidency in remarks that CNN called “meandering.”
He also talked about current events, such as Greenland and the latest actions involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota.
Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, tweeted, “This presser is bizarre even for him. It’s all the usual rambling, off-topic tales, half-truths, lies, ‘I’ve fixed everything – no one has ever seen anything like it’ stuff…but it’s low-energy & feels like he’s…mentally slipping. Congress-plz wake up. Plz. #EmperorHasNoClothes.”
Meanwhile, CNN’s Daniel Dale said of Trump’s inaccuracies, “There are just so many. I’m struggling to keep track of it, you know.”
****
Sure nuff – we do know the difference and that you are “lying between your teeth.
Can’t you guys ever tell the truth for once in your lifetime? Why aren’t you ever covering the last 12 years of the Obama/Biden/Democrats/Socialism and why the people of this country are suffering due to your lack of reporting on the weaponization of our country/people/corruption/Minnesota/cheating/elections? The real stuff!
The emperor has no clothes. Bessent just said it louder than anyone else has dared.
Bessent Roasts Newsom at World Economic Forum While California Burns
When Hypocrisy Gets a Standing Ovation
Scott Bessent didn’t come to Davos to play nice. The Treasury Secretary took one look at Gavin Newsom rubbing elbows with billionaires at the World Economic Forum and decided someone needed to say what everyone’s been thinking for years. And boy, did he deliver.
“Very, very ironic that Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken, may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris.” That’s not just a burn. That’s a cremation.
The comparison is almost too perfect. Patrick Bateman, the soulless Wall Street psychopath from American Psycho, combined with Sparkle Beach Ken, the vapid plastic doll. It captures something essential about Newsom that Californians have watched play out in real time. The slicked-back hair, the expensive suits, the hollow platitudes about compassion while his state crumbles. He looks the part of a leader, sounds vaguely competent when reading from a teleprompter, but scratch the surface and there’s nothing there.
The French Laundry Moment That Defined Everything
Here’s where Bessent really twisted the knife. He brought up the French Laundry incident, and honestly, how could he not? When you’re telling regular folks they can’t go to church, when you’re having people arrested for the crime of worshiping together, and then you’re caught at a thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner with lobbyists? That’s not just hypocrisy. That’s aristocratic contempt.
“He’s here this week with his billionaire sugar daddy, Alex Soros,” Bessent said. “And Davos is a perfect place for a man who when everyone else was on lockdown, when he was having people arrested for going to church, he was having $1,000 a night meals at the French Laundry.”
You know what makes this sting? It’s true. Every word of it. While small businesses shuttered permanently, while kids fell behind in Zoom school, while depression and suicide rates climbed, Newsom lived like royalty. Rules for thee but not for me. It’s the oldest story in politics, but rarely has it been so perfectly illustrated.
The Backbone Speech That Backfired
And then Newsom had the audacity to lecture world leaders about standing up to President Trump. “It’s time to buck up, it’s time to get serious and stop being complicit,” he declared. “I can’t take this complicity, people rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of kneepads for all the world leaders.”
Classy, right? This from a man who’s spent years rolling over for every progressive interest group, every public sector union, every radical activist with a megaphone. California has the highest taxes, the worst homelessness crisis, rolling blackouts, water shortages, and a mass exodus of productive citizens. But sure, Gavin, lecture everyone else about leadership.
Alex Soros loved it, of course. Posted his approval on X, calling Newsom “the real star” of Davos. Nothing says man of the people like getting a pat on the head from a billionaire heir whose family fortune was built on currency manipulation.
California Dreaming Turns Into California Screaming
Let’s talk about Newsom’s economic record for a second. California should be unstoppable. Perfect weather, Pacific trade access, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, agriculture, tourism. Every natural advantage you could want. And yet Newsom’s managed to drive it into a ditch.
Budget deficits that would make a banana republic blush. Homelessness that’s turned San Francisco and Los Angeles into open-air asylums. Crime that’s forcing retailers to lock up toothpaste. Middle-class families fleeing to Texas, Florida, anywhere with sane governance.
Bessent’s comparison to Kamala Harris wasn’t random. Both of them rose through California politics by looking good and saying the right things to the right people. Neither one demonstrated actual competence at managing anything. Harris couldn’t even run a functional campaign staff. Newsom can’t run a functional state.
The Davos Crowd Loves a Good Performance
What’s Newsom even doing in Davos? He’s a governor, not a head of state. But that’s always been his problem. He thinks he’s president-in-waiting. He’s been auditioning for the role since he first slicked back his hair and practiced his concerned face in the mirror.
The World Economic Forum is perfect for him. It’s all performance, no substance. Everyone congratulating each other for caring about climate change while flying in on private jets. Discussing income inequality over champagne that costs more than most people make in a week. It’s political theater for people who’ve forgotten what actual work looks like.
Bessent calling this out matters because it cuts through the pretense. We’ve spent too long pretending that people like Newsom are serious leaders with serious ideas. They’re not. They’re actors playing a role, and not even particularly good ones.
Again – the emperor has no clothes. Bessent just said it louder than anyone else has dared.
kommonsentsjane 