{"id":95909,"date":"2026-09-23T07:12:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=95909"},"modified":"2026-09-23T07:12:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T06:12:36","slug":"mad-bad-or-beneath-contempt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/09\/23\/mad-bad-or-beneath-contempt\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad, bad, or beneath contempt?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump was at the UN yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Amongst the many stupid things he had to say, including that this planet was cooling, he also claimed that he had a choice to make.<\/p>\n<p>He could, he said, do a deal with Iran that would make it \u201ca far greater country than it ever was before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, he could \u201cannihilate the Islamic Republic\u201d and \u201cdrive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the process, he posed a threat that challenges the UN itself, an organisation created after World War II, dedicated to peace, not annihilation.<\/p>\n<p>In that case, is that the language of a President, someone who has lost touch with reality, or someone to whom we would deny the oxygen of publicity, which is what he craves?<\/p>\n<div id=\"polls-534\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t<form id=\"polls_form_534\" class=\"wp-polls-form\" action=\"\/Blog\/index.php\" method=\"post\">\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_534_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"7083104079\" \/><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"display: none;\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"poll_id\" value=\"534\" \/><\/p>\n\t\t<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>Is Donald Trump:<\/strong><\/p><div id=\"polls-534-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-2311\" name=\"poll_534\" value=\"2311\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-2311\">Mad?<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-2312\" name=\"poll_534\" value=\"2312\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-2312\">Bad?<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-2313\" name=\"poll_534\" value=\"2313\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-2313\">An idiot?<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<li><input type=\"radio\" id=\"poll-answer-2314\" name=\"poll_534\" value=\"2314\" \/> <label for=\"poll-answer-2314\">Beneath contempt, and so comment<\/label><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><p style=\"text-align: center\"><input type=\"button\" name=\"vote\" value=\"   Vote   \" class=\"Buttons\" data-poll-id=\"534\" data-poll-action=\"vote\" \/><\/p><p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"#ViewPollResults\" data-poll-id=\"534\" data-poll-action=\"result\" title=\"View Results Of This Poll\">View Results<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"polls-534-loading\" class=\"wp-polls wp-polls-loading\"><span class=\"wp-polls-spinner\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span> Loading ...<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump was at the UN yesterday. Amongst the many stupid things he had to say, including that this planet was cooling, he also claimed<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/09\/23\/mad-bad-or-beneath-contempt\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,106,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-politics","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95909"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95914,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95909\/revisions\/95914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}