Anyone who takes seriously the idea that Donald Trump is a toady for Vladimir Putin is paying too much attention to CNN and MSNBC headlines, and almost none to actual U.S. policy. Trump's opening up of U.S. domestic energy production alone has caused a major shift in global energy markets that has damaged Russia geopolitically like few other things ever could.
But what's happened in the last 24 hours has really driven home how much the U.S. is ready to go to the mat to hold Russia accountable for its recent misdeeds. First, Nikki Haley absolutely eviscerated the Russians at the UN over the Skripal poisoning: