Democracy is not about passing idiotic laws, enforced or not, if somebody told you so he lied. But Russian lawmaking process right now has as much common with democracy as North Korean courts have with justice. There is a king - his name is Vladimir Putin - whose word is law, and nobody is allowed to muddle anywhere without his knowledge or initiative. The flurry of insane laws from the Duma - the possessed printer, as it is called in Russia - is not some random mistake, it is a reflection of insanity setting in in Russian politics, unfortunately. To be sure, American politics has its own share of insanity, but of a completely different kind.
>>> Investigative journalism is dead. Journalists are now bought and paid for by rich patrons.
It must be very bleak in the world you live in. Knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, indeed.