Putin: President for Life. Yawn.

from Yahoo! news:

He was president for the maximum time possible. Now he's got something of a puppet president and he holds the office of Prime Minister. And his pal Medvedev had this brilliant idea to cram unpopular Constitutional changes down the throats of the good people of Russia, in such a way that Putin can serve a further 12 years as president.

Hmm.

So it turns out old pooty-poot might not feel like giving up control of the old bear just yet? Really? GOSH! who would have thought...

Oh, wait. That's right, he never stopped running Russia. So now they're trying to change the constitution so he can rule for another 12 years. Good. Fine. Great.

It makes me think about a Constitution that Russia had earlier, when it was the RFSFR and, later, the USSR / CCCP. They had this constitutional provision that prisoners were entitled to humane treatment. Of course, the prisoners in Gulag were tortured, starved, even outright murdered, for literally no reason aside from the insatiable need of the State for more laborers. When a person was quite broken by their torturers, they would be given a paper to sign (along with their "confession") that said they were aware of their constitutional rights, and had been well treated. Most would sign and hope their treatment in Gulag would get better at the next station (it didn't, ever.)

The people were not allowed to read the laws of their land, so of course they were ignorant of the laws, and quite surprised they had not only the right to fair treatment, but even the right to protest!

If someone wanted to exercise their constitutional right to protest the treatment they had received, they were free to write a higher authority and await a hearing on the matter... in the same prison, under the same deplorable conditions. This was not necessarily a survivable affair. The fun part was, if you complained of being forced to sleep on a bunk with three other people (that was wide enough for one) in a room designed to sleep 7 that held 50, they might decide to put you in a less-crowded cell. By yourself. For months at a time. In a cell with an uncovered window facing a Siberian winter. With the walls sweating and the air freezing, with a wood-plank bed and no blanket, and maybe a piece of wet bread to eat for your daily meal. And either the rats would eat you to a painful, infected end, or you would freeze to death, or die of starvation, and then the State wouldn't have to deal with your protest: problem solved!

All that to say,

The Russian government has a history of blatantly ignoring constitutional restrictions and seeing them twist it to make Vladimir President for Life, should really come as a surprise to no-one.

Just sayin', that's all.