#China flies nuclear bomber over South China Sea to 'send a message' to Donald Trump https://t.co/I4sJiW2UEt
— Eunice Yoon (@eyoonCNBC) December 12, 2016
Remember President-Asterisk Trump’s celebratory phone call from Taiwan? Well, the Peoples’ Republic sure does! While we were (understandably) distracted by the latest Russian revelations of Repub perfidity, here’s a report from NYMag:
… Preventing Taiwan from achieving internationally recognized independence is one of the top priorities of Chinese foreign policy — one that its military is prepared to go to war over.
Following Trump’s call, China decided to clarify that last point, by flying a nuclear-capable bomber over its disputed islands in the South China Sea — while also preparing to ship new surface-to-air missiles to those islands, according to U.S. officials who spoke with Fox News.
Trump was not impressed by this display of force. In an interview with Fox News Sunday, the president-elect suggested that he felt no compulsion to honor the “One China” policy — unless China accedes to his demands on trade.
“I fully understand the ‘One China’ policy,” Trump assured Fox. “But I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘One China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”
Of course, honoring the “One China” policy has allowed the United States to make countless “deals” with China, on issues of ranging from environmental policy to international sanctions.
On Monday, China announced that future acts of cooperation would be jeopardized, should Trump continue down his current path.
“China expresses serious concern on this subject,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters, including representatives of NBC News. “If the [One China policy] is compromised or interfered with, any sound and steady development in China-U.S. relations and cooperation in various fields is out of the question.”…
Trump spent much of his campaign rattling a saber in Beijing’s direction. “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country,” he told his supporters in May. “That’s what they’re doing. It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”… China generally makes the same assumption about this bellicosity that many liberals made about Donald Trump’s political career — after Election Day, it will all be over.
But now Trump is president-elect. And China is shipping missiles to the disputed islands that many see as the (potential) cradle of the next world war…
Note from a Foreign Policy reporter:
… I have lived in China for 13 years, and in that time I have talked with perhaps three mainlanders who thought that Taiwan had the right to determine its own future. Everyone else with whom I’ve discussed the issue, from ardent liberals to hardcore Marxists to the politically apathetic, has been fervently against the idea that Taiwan could ever be considered a country. It’s an idea as weird, taboo, and offensive to the majority of Chinese as proposing the restitution of slavery would be to Americans — not for its moral value but for going against everything they hold dear about their country.
Most of the time, when Beijing says something has “hurt the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese,” it’s petulant bullshit; on Taiwanese issues it comes closer to the truth. On the WeChat Moments feed of a former student, a bright and intellectually curious teenager, I saw her rage at finding the Taiwanese flag on the wall of a dorm at her new American university. “IT’S NOT A COUNTRY!” she indignantly declared, her anger echoed by her (Chinese) schoolmates follow-up comments…It’s an unhappy and bitter part of Chinese nationalism, one that denies both the six-decade reality on the ground and the agency of Taiwanese to decide their own future. But it’s not going to disappear overnight. If the Communist Party vanished into smoke tomorrow, Chinese would still be contemptuous of Taiwanese aspirations and furious with anyone who suggested otherwise.
On America’s part, the issue needs to be handled carefully, respectfully, and with a certain allegiance to diplomatic fictions. Anything else risks stirring not just Beijing’s ire but genuine public anger — a force that Beijing itself might sometimes manipulate but may also not be able to entirely control.
The NYTimes, ever helpful once it’s too late, explains “If Donald Trump Pushes on Taiwan, How China Could Push Back“.
Recaps from last week:
Trump claims he heard he was getting a call from Taiwan an hour or two before it happened: pic.twitter.com/IYFZezPEnD
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) December 11, 2016
So, it was planned and discussed – by lobbyists – for six months.
But Trump heard about it an hour before.
Let that sink in. https://t.co/jLtqVvFK6b
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 11, 2016
Bob Dole worked behind the scenes for over 6 months to establish contact between Taiwanese officials & Donald Trump https://t.co/I2WfF96Uwx
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) December 6, 2016
Let's just be clear: his firm was being paid by the Taiwanese government to do this. https://t.co/GhRsxOb4Qo
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 6, 2016
Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016
Did China ask if they could make your products and lend you money? https://t.co/0iqJ6d7iG9
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 5, 2016
Maybe Trump will push China enough that the Chinese banks to which he owes money will go public about it.
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 6, 2016
Mnemosyne
Great, so the US gets to be Putin’s proxy in a war with China.
I guess I didn’t really need to sleep tonight.
CM
Dana Houle says, “Maybe Trump will push China enough that the Chinese banks to which he owes money will go public about it.”
Maybe Trump is looking for an excuse to avoid paying back the money he owes.
Conflict of interest?
Betty Cracker
Oh well. On the bright side, the morons who thought a Trump administration was preferable to “neoliberal” rule for the contradiction heightening qualities (looking at you, Sarandon) now get to test their hypothesis.
Steeplejack (phone)
People is plural. People’s is the possessive.
Also, while I’m grammar-ranting in general, if people can’t be arsed to figure out rein/reign, they should just use rein all the time and will achieve a stunningly high percentage of correctness vs. throwing in reign where they think it probably fits (but doesn’t).
Steeplejack (phone)
I will now retire to my lair for a period of troubled sleep.
Juice Box
Although she reigns in England, the Queen cannot rein in the rain in England.
Morzer
https://medium.com/kang-blog/an-open-letter-to-fellow-minority-journalists-2ccf3f1bbfeb#.2lpywxdw1
balconesfault
I think in the back of his mind Trump really thinks he can “win” negotiations with the Chinese the same way he “wins” negotiations with banks … by threatening bankruptcy.
I don’t think he is capable of big picture thinking over what happens immediately to the global economy if faith in the US currency disappears … nor what that will mean to the US economy in the long run when the dollar is no longer the global currency.
Exxon Mobil, OTOH, will be fine with pegging their assets to whatever currency emerges after the global financial meltdown.
Morzer
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/breaking-ivanka-out-don-eric-take-reins-trump-biz
Damien
Is this how conservatives have felt for the last 20 years or longer? By which I mean that I genuinely consider every single person who voted for Trump to be my enemy, that they are actively working to fuck this whole thing up for everyone not like them.
Is this how they’ve felt? Because if so, I’m surprised there isn’t more violence.
Betty Cracker
@Morzer: I believe it’s a lateral move. Ivanka and hubby will orchestrate global-scale influence peddling and leverage US assets in the service of international shakedowns from the White House while the vile sons handle money laundering via the “private” businesses.
@Damien: I’ve wondered that too. Hell, I even caught myself wanting to “take my country back” the other day!
Schlemazel
@Damien:”. . . By which I mean that I genuinely consider every single person who voted for Trump to be my enemy, that they are actively working to fuck this whole thing up for everyone
not like them.What they might have THOUGHT they were doing & what they were actually doing may not be the same thing.
Morzer
http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/12/13894546/obama-race-black-white-house-cornell-belcher-racism
There’s a lot to think about in this piece and I hope a frontpager might be interested in picking it up and… well… front-paging it for general discussion.
Starfish
This makes me long for the days when the Chinese were arguing with Obama over some stairs.
Betty Cracker
@Morzer: It’s an interesting article, and I agree with the researcher’s premise: folks who are pushing the economic messaging angle as a cure-all for the Dems’ ills are overlooking the fact that a big chunk of white folks consciously voted as an identity group. PBO’s two terms may have set the stage for it, but I think the influence of Black Lives Matter and related activism (Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the anthem, etc.) is underrated as a force that drove so many white people to vote for a racist demagogue.
Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
So, a yuuge classy front paging might be possible?
hoodie
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, underneath it all is the Fear of a Black Planet. Hence the easy acceptance of selling the country to Putin on the cheap. They’d rather be serfs than get a decent paycheck and health insurance from a black guy.
Betty Cracker
@Morzer: Could be!
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Completely agree. At least, as far as the people around me who voted for that man are concerned. Though many of them claim to believe his boasts about bringing back big coal and big steel, conversations with them in which I point out the absurdity of that, shrug it off and say shit like well, he’s making America great again anyway because he’ll stop all these protests and jail all the criminals and Obama made us weaker and the blacks and Mexicans will be put back in their places. It always devolves to that last point. Every. Single. Time.
They don’t care whether they prosper as long as black and brown people suffer in a way that they can see it. Sick mother fuckers, the lot of them. I knew there were a lot them around here but I had no idea that I was completely surrounded by them.
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: I told my sister that I was going to get her a MAGA hat.
hoodie
@geg6: This kind of behavior is not limited to tribes defined by race. My experience in groups is that human beings have a hard time thinking in other than zero sum terms because zero sum is the easiest model to execute. Tribes are an easy heuristic, and ones based on skin color or superficial cultural cues are the easiest of all. it’s like my uncle once said about marriage, you pick one (wife, tribe, whatever) and all the other mistakes follow really easily.
Morzer
@hoodie:
Your uncle makes an interesting case for and against polygamy.
hoodie
@Morzer: That may be why he ended up choosing vodka.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: I’ve been surrounded by scumbags all my life without fully realizing it too. The ones who disgust me the most are the Bible-humping right-wing hypocrites — the folks who consider marriage equality a form of religious persecution because straight marriage is oh-so-sacred and then turn around and vote for an amoral, thrice-married thug who would steal the shekels off Lazarus’ eyes. Fuck those hypocritical motherfuckers. I can’t wait for the next one to try to lecture me about morality, on any topic whatsoever.
Aimai
@Betty Cracker: they are in denial over the embedded racisn. They just refuse to see it.
geg6
@Aimai:
They will loudly exclaim they are not a racist, they just want to stop all the crime! This, while their kids are shooting heroin and their wives are hopped up on oxy and they drink themselves into early liver disease and rack up multiple DUIs. All financed by their SSI.
Betty Cracker
@hoodie: It’s also a global phenomenon that otherizes immigrants everywhere. There are billboards in the Balkans celebrating the Trump-Putin alliance, and of course the most vile xenophobes in France, Germany, the UK, etc., are also rejoicing.
Starfish
@geg6: This! There is so much complaining about all the poor persecuted racists that I had to tell one of these dudes that perhaps they needed a safe space.
SFAW
@Starfish:
How about a Let America Live Again hat? But the TEFA supporters might think it was intended as pro-/pre-TEFA, not post-Inauguration/anti-TEFA. (ETA: I originally had “post-TEFA,” but the likelihood of anyone being left to care about that is teeny-tiny.)
I sleep a lot better than Mnemosyne, but only because I’m old and tired, not because I’m less concerned.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
All Lives Matter! And YOU are the real racist for not pointing that out!
Don’t you know that anti-white racism is what led to all the evils befalling this country? You liberals, with your casual racism, and your trying to say the darkies are better than real Americans.
Or is it anti-Christian bigotry that’s the problem? I can never remember, and I haven’t started watching Fox yet today.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
If your kid is around when that happens, can you get her (her, right?) to vid the whole thing, and then post it?
rikyrah
@geg6:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Cheryl Rofer
Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) argues that, by the technical definition, the H-6 isn’t a “nuclear capable” bomber, so this signal is only that China might use its conventional might. He also argues that the US and China should be talking to each other rather than signaling. Fat chance with DJT in power.
Twitter thread starts here.
msdc
Clearly this reporter has been out of the country for too long.
Another Scott
@SFAW: I’ve kinda regretted not getting this bumper sticker earlier. Maybe for the Saturnalia!
VA has the option to get the DTOM license plate. They’re disturbingly popular around here. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
low-tech cyclist
I don’t care who the fuck was paying him, Bob Dole has to know he was working against U.S. interests. So Bob, you sold out your country for $$, huh?
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
I mostly realized who and what they were years ago, and the sad thing about this election season has been seeing everything I thought I knew about them confirmed. That even when given a literal fascist who couldn’t be arsed to do something as basic as disavow the Klan, the vast majority of them would vote for him, and even the few that didn’t would be back in a few days to scold liberals for not being compassionate and understanding towards Klan voters. That even when given a literal Vichy government that felt more comfortable with Putin’s Russia than it did with NATO, they’d shrug and grumble something about Hillary’s emails and how therefore both sides are bad. I always thought most of them would cheerfully herd people into cattle cars if that was what their party asked of them. Now I just know for sure.
SFAW
@low-tech cyclist:
Maybe he was just trying to get Liddy a plum job in TEFA’s new “Cabinet.” Hey, if it works for the current Rethuglican leader, why shouldn’t a former one get some action.
Party Before Country, you damned Lie-beral.
SFAW
@Chris:
After reading this comment, and Betty’s, and a whole host of similar ones from other commenters here, I am so grateful that — with (I think) only one exception — my immediate and extended family is liberals “as far as the eye can see.”
Nelle
I saw Bob Dole at a convo with Nancy Kassebaum Baker in October. Barely moving physically , still sharp mentally with his wit at hand. I thought, then, it was clear that, while Kassebaum was putting country before party, Dole was solidly party before country. Now I learn he was self before all else. Age has brought him little wisdom.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
Seriously, though, it’s been nearly 70 years. Beijing needs to either invade or give it up.
tobie
What kills me about Trump’s constant refrain that China’s devaluing its currency is that this is simply not the case. Since the crash of the Chinese markets in spring ad summer 2016, China has been inflating its currency like mad. This policy comes up a lot in business journals, like this article in Bloomberg , but no one, not even economic journalists, is able to connect the dots. I guess it’s easier to blame the Chinese for US manufacturing woes than to actually look at their policies. Bernistas are as guilty as Trumpistas for demagoguing this issue. Facts be damned.
gratutious
Yeah, China takes this stuff really seriously. I had a friend who was sent to work in China for a few years. He wanted to take his wife and kids with him, naturally. When they applied to the Chinese government for the employment post, the application was refused. Their marriage license listed my friend’s wife’s nation of birth as Taiwan (she was adopted and brought to the States shortly after being born), and the Chinese declared that they weren’t really married, since the wife wasn’t born in a cognizable location.
My friends got re-married and had a new license issued, listing the wife’s nation of birth (by adoption) as the United States. Application approved. If the Chinese are this touchy about a box on a marriage license form, yeah, they regard it as a Bidenesque BFD.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The problem with all the talk about smug and condescending liberals is the same with being atheist talking to Christians; one can not help finding them ridiculous and childish because they are saying ridiculous and childish things. I know this group of Hindus who consider this one woman some kind of avatar of one their goddesses and for all none of them talk in the same silly way a Christian will and we have intelligent discussions on things like archeology. Meanwhile I was talking to some teen from Kansas who because of his quality REAL American elite free education doesn’t know what a prosecutor is and as near as I can tell was learned how society works by watching Star Wars movies.
magurakurin
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
Chinese culture is over 3000 years old. 70 years for them is like a week in our historical time scale. The Civil War has been over for 150 years, but plenty of Confederate Battle Flags around. Forcing their hand on this issue won’t work out good for anyone. And judging from some of the reporting of the last few days from Taiwan, they are beginning to realize that their president made a bad, bad mistake tossing in with Shitgibbon. He is not to be trusted. He will toss them aside like a cheap shirt if it suits him.
Dread
It’s an idea as weird, taboo, and offensive to the majority of Chinese as proposing the restitution of slavery would be to Americans — not for its moral value but for going against everything they hold dear about their country.
It’s nice that they think this about us. I don’t. I think a fair percentage of Americans would be perfectly fine with repealing the 13th and 14th amendments.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@magurakurin: I think folks who are still supporting the very dead Confederate President Davis are idiots. Why should I think differently about Taiwan?
And 3000 years don’t mean shit to me. We’re all dead long before that. And when you’re dead, you stay dead.
True, though, Trump is a bad idea generally, and throwing in with him is a mug’s game.
geg6
@SFAW:
The only thing getting me through this is the fact that my family (both immediate and extended) is a bunch of liberals and so are most of my closest friends. But I am feeling quite socially isolated because we are a pond of sanity in an ocean of craziness here in Western PA.
Librarian
@Steeplejack (phone): Also, it’s “restoration”, not “restitution.”
Percysowner
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: Well Trump may have pushed them into that. They were willing to avoid a war as long as everyone played along with the idea that Taiwan was part of China. They didn’t interfere with Taiwan’s self government they were willing to wait it out. Now, well they may feel they can’t wait it out if a large nuclear powered nation is going to interfere. Maybe they just didn’t want a war that could expand to destroy the world?
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Librarian:
True. Also could have gone with the slightly ungainly reinstitution. But restitution is right out.
Barbara
Although this has been changing, the government of Taiwan from 1950 onward has been comprised primarily of the people who were fighting communists in China and who, for a while, maintained a goal of reclaiming power. That is one reason why the level of antagonism has always been high. Another is that those who fled to Taiwan took a lot of cultural patrimony with them. The Taiwanese national museum has an unbelievable display of art and sculpture and much else. I was told that any given time only a small amount was ever on display. So if you feel even an iota of sympathy for people who are still trying to recover works of art that were looted from their family during WWII, to the Chinese government, this was looting from the Chinese people on a grand scale. But I don’t think China wants war because fundamentally it sees the Taiwanese as being Chinese and it would prefer its policy towards Taiwan to be more like Hong Kong than Tibet. I am not an expert, but this “cold war” has probably served Taiwan relatively well even if elements within Taiwan would prefer to push the envelope. It’s an incredibly stupid and reckless thing for Trump to do without having conferred with military and country experts.
Citizen_X
Yes, but that was last week, or 28 outrages ago.
Barbara
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: On what theory? My assumption is that over time the two will become closer through business ties and that over time voters in Taiwan will vote for more mainland friendly policies. China has been a country for thousands of years compared to our paltry 240. They have lots of time.
Barbara
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
Because this isn’t about you? Because you aren’t them and they aren’t you? Because not everyone on the planet thinks like you (or me)? Because they are geographically much closer and it’s important to them even if for reasons you find mystifying? Because if you are wrong it matters more than just in theory if Taiwan is reduced to a smoking pile of rubble?
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Betty Cracker: I think Trayvon Martin was the turning point. Right-wing trolls just love bringing up “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Makes me wonder if the Obamas would have been so well-liked if they’d had sons instead of daughters.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@Barbara: You are making me out to be a much more important person than I am. I’m just some yahoo commenting on an obscure, dying political blog.
Same as you.
Sunny Raines
@Betty Cracker: the elevation of trump, and the modern Republican Party for that matter raises the serious question: are too many Americans too stupid for America to have a democracy. Also highlights the vaunted American system of governance is fatally flawed.
Barbara
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: I am doing no such thing. I am responding to your comments. That is all.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I think he may actually have meant “reparations”? That’s how I read it.
Jinchi
@Damien:
You do remember that we had 8 years of George Bush in the last 20, right?
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Trump supporters want reckless and stupid. And the Republican leadership thinks that reckless and stupid is a winning hand.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Sunny Raines: This.
Это курам на смех
We may as well embroider that, frame it, and hang it on the wall.
SFAW
@Dread:
I’d put the figure at about 46 percent of voters.
Those Amendments are the ones designed to increase economic anxiety, right? So repealing them would reduce that anxiety.
SFAW
@Damien:
It didn’t start with Newtie’s GOPAC efforts, but he kind of distilled all the irrational hatred the wingnuts have for anyone not like them. But since Reagan was elected, wingnuts have moved from “governing” to “ruling.” (I realize it may have started before that, but I don’t think Ford was quite that way.)
Well, elder statesmen like Alex Jones and his cadre have done their best to tamp down paranoia and xenophobia, and it’s yielded stunning results.
SFAW
@Sunny Raines:
That’s the way the Rethugs want it. Or were you under the impression that their attempted destruction of the public education system was because they sincerely believed they could improve the intelligence/education of the populace?
If you always assume the worst about Rethuglican motives, you will rarely (if ever) be wrong.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Mnemosyne:
I thought of that initially, but reparations doesn’t fit the structure of “proposing the restitution of slavery.” He would have meant “proposing reparations for slavery” and written “proposing restitution for slavery” (which actually would have gotten closer than where he ended up).
JanieM
I remember listening to someone involved in Kosovo (an American) at the time when Kosovo was declaring itself independent of Serbia. He went on and on about the right of people in Kosovo to self-determination. Then he turned around, and without the slightest apparent awareness of the inconsistency, went on and on about how some city on the border, which Kosovo claimed but which had a large majority of Serbians who wanted to remain part of Serbia, did not have the right to stay with Serbia if Kosovo claimed it.
My point isn’t about which side is right, it’s that people who claim that some group or other should have “agency to determine their own future” so often apply this notion so selectively.
Brachiator
@balconesfault:
As far as I can tell, Trump is largely a failure as a deal maker. And he rarely wins by “threatening bankruptcy,” rather the prospect of bankruptcy and elaborate restructuring of bad deals has allowed him to save face after disastrous miscalculations.
And this is the dope that his supporters see as their Fearless Leader.
Barbara
@balconesfault: So he will “win” negotiations by requiring the U.S. to effectively pay higher interest rates in order to keep China buying U.S. denominated bonds. Of course, there are many people who desperately wish U.S. bond rates would rise, many of them in the U.S. who really want a secure, fixed instrument so that they can live on their accumulated capital without taking on too much investment risk. These people come out of the woodwork in NYT comments whenever there is an announcement that the Fed has decided to hold interest rates steady. These people feel really aggrieved. Of course, placating them means mortgage rates, loan rates generally, and the cost of borrowing money for business expansion will be higher for everyone else.
Brachiator
@Sunny Raines:
The Founders felt that way, although they may have had a looser definition of “stupid” in mind.
Turns out they had a damned good point.
Matt McIrvin
I bet you’d get way more Americans to support the restitution of slavery.
NCSteve
@Morzer: Every single lawyer I know–and I am one–is horrified, appalled and terrified. Across the spectrum from ACLU bleeding heart to country clubbing arch-conservative.
ruckus
@Aimai:
That can be a pretty harsh mirror, that racist mirror.
If one doesn’t want to be an open racist, denial is your best friend.
Chad
@Betty Cracker: Throw in some comments about White Privilege and yeah, I can see the argument about choosing a tribal identity over whats best for your wallet.
artem1s
If China wants to get thru to The Idjit what a BFD this is, Xi Jinping should call the President of Mexico and offer to help him seize back their sovereign state of Texas.
Raoul
this line from that FP article was delightful (sadly, I accidentally hit the wrong tweet button, was taken away from the page and can’t read the rest of the article). But, this:
Of course, a certain someone isn’t a sexual puritan, but rather a predator, which also brings constant attention to him.
Chris
@SFAW:
I should clarify that most of the people in my family and my circle of friends, and most of the places I’ve lived in, are liberal. I am not in BC’s situation if being surrounded by such people.
But I know enough of them all the same, be they family, acquaintances, or (mostly former) friends, and from a diverse enough bunch of backgrounds (New York trust fund babies, white middle class suburban/exurban Southerners, Cuban hard-liners from Miami, fundamentalists of all stripes, the various government-employed-libertarians here in the DC area) that I was comfortable concluding years ago that no, there’s really no redeemable faction in the GOP.
Cermet
The dump had better listen closely; Chinese don’t mix words or use indirect comments – they mean what they say and don’t play games. China supports the US and hates Russia; russia and the asswipe putin know this and want the dump to create a wedge between the US and China. Look’s like the asswipe putin will get what he wants from his pet poodle dump.