“The fact that we were willing to be critical of the United States . . . I think that made them maybe more appreciative of our criticisms we made of their own society,” Sanders said then. “We were saying, ‘Yeah, in our country, we also have a housing crisis. Our housing in general is better than yours, but people are paying 40 percent of their income for housing. The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent. The quality of your health care is not good, but in the United States, believe me, we have enormous problems in terms of our health-care system.’ ”<doc-sep>The Washington Post’s lengthy “examination” of Bernie Sanders’ much reported-on trip to the Soviet Union 31 years ago is being mocked online for repeating old news and attempting a new Red Scare. The WaPo details a trip Sanders took to the then-Soviet Union in 1988, and starts describing the then-mayor being “bare-chested, towel-draped, sitting at a table lined with vodka bottles, as he sang ‘This Land Is Your Land.’” The trip was made to establish Yaroslavl as a ‘sister city’ for his hometown of Burlington soon after Sanders’ wedding and he joked it was a “very strange honeymoon.” Also on rt.com Bernie Sanders stuns establishment with Fox News town hall success Sanders apparently “stood on Soviet soil” and criticized the cost of healthcare and housing in the US, then ‘stunned’ someone at a banquet by criticizing US foreign intervention. “I got really upset and walked out,” the delicately dispositioned David F. Kelley recalled. He admits later in the article that Sanders was right. Sanders told a press conference upon his return to the US that he thought his criticism of the US made the Russians “more appreciative of our criticisms we made of their own society.” Social media users were quick to mock the Post for its article, with many claiming it was a sign that the socialist smears against Sanders were being employed once again. It’s odd they launching all their types of attacks so early and they keep falling one by one and not hold up . It seems like they’re panicking — Mahmoud Alzobaee (@mahmoudkenny98) May 3, 2019 Thanks for your smear campaign to prevent people like me from having adequate health care... been a post reader for a while but really tired of this. You know the overall image this headline paints is dishonest, even if you’re forwarning about a Trump tactic. — David Dean (@davidbfdean) May 3, 2019 I love how all of these attacks against Bernie are coming out on the same day. Makes it much easier to see which “journalists” are working directly with Biden’s campaign. So far we got Heidi, Rucker, Nate, and maybe Holly ottobean, tho her smear was so weak I’m not sure. — Greg C (Bernie 2020) (@greg06897) May 3, 2019 The Bezos Post examines the honeymoon of Sanders because it was in a communist country. The horror. “An examination by The Washington Post of the trip”Inside Bernie Sanders’s 1988 10-day ‘honeymoon’ in the Soviet Union https://t.co/ql51b3pI4A — asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل (@asadabukhalil) May 3, 2019 Sanders’ trip to the Soviet Union is old news, and was trotted out during the 2016 primaries to cast an ominous communist shadow on the Vermont senator, with many mediaoutlets, including the Post, reporting on it. Sanders was smeared as a dangerous socialist by a number of Democratic operatives. He was questioned by CNN’s Anderson Cooper about his ‘honeymoon in Russia’, and Lindsey Graham mentioned it in the Republican debates. Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<doc-sep>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) famously visited the Soviet Union on his honeymoon in 1988, and a new report from the Washington Post shows he blasted U.S. foreign and domestic policy at a Russian banquet. The 46-year-old mayor of Burlington, Vt., at the time, Sanders was open about his desire to learn from the Soviet socialist system to improve America's economy. Specifically, he said the low housing costs were preferable to the U.S. situation where people spend a much larger percentage of their income on housing, and he lambasted U.S. foreign policy. At a banquet with about 100 attendees in Burlington’s "sister city" of Yaroslavl, Sanders lit into U.S. intervention—prompting the only Republican in the group to walk out. "I got really upset and walked out," David F. Kelley said. "When you are a critic of your country, you can say anything you want on home soil. At that point, the Cold War wasn’t over, the arms race wasn’t over, and I just wasn’t comfortable with it." Sanders’s trip was part of his push for a national platform, before he became a U.S. senator, and he wanted foreign policy experience. "I saw no magic line separating local, state, national and international issues," Sanders wrote while he was mayor. "How could issues of war and peace not be a local issue?" Sanders, who is now running for president for the second time, declined to answer questions from the Post, but he has repeatedly cited the trip to Russia as a formative experience for his foreign policy views. His senior adviser Jeff Weaver said Sanders’s trip was part of his philosophy that "if you can get people from everyday walks of life together, you can break through some of the animosity that exists on a governmental level." Sanders and his also entourage visited Moscow and Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad), hitting such spots as Red Square, Lenin’s tomb, and a World War II cemetery. Once in Yaroslavl they toured hospitals, factories, and schools, and Sanders praised their housing policy despite repeated hints from Soviet officials that their system was nearing collapse. Sanders also encouraged business arrangements between the Soviets and Americans, specifically calling for Vermont-based ice cream brand Ben and Jerry’s to build a factory in the USSR now that Mikhail Gorbachev’s new policies were loosening economic restrictions. Ben and Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen said they actually did build a facility in the Soviet Union but "it had nothing to do with Bernie." In the end, it was offloaded after not making any money, although Cohen said they were paid at one point with Russian nesting dolls. A doctor on the trip, Alan Rubin, vividly recalls when Sanders and the group went with Yaroslavl officials to the sauna and a cold-water bath, a classic Russian celebration. Video of Sanders wearing a toga and singing "This Land Is Your Land" amidst a healthy supply of vodka was one part of the trip that has been widely spread on the Internet. "He was delighted," Rubin said. "He met people he cared about and cared about him. He got very curious about life in Russia, and I think it became part of his life. He was interested in the way they organized health-care education, street life, families . . . It opened up a new world for me and, I expect, for him, too." Before the Iron Curtain fell and the Cold War ended, Sanders had long expressed disagreement with the idea that the Soviets were an "enemy." Burlington invited a children’s choir for a visit in 1987, and after they performed Sanders asked to come on stage, where he pointed to the choir and asked, "This is the enemy?" Sanders lavished praise not only on Soviet housing policy, but on the regimes in Nicaragua and Cuba. In 1985, he visited Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship and said, "I was impressed," granting that "I will be attacked by every editorial writer for being a dumb dope" for saying so.<doc-sep>
New details emerged Friday about Sen. Bernie Sanders' infamous honeymoon in the Soviet Union back in the 1980s -- including an anecdote about how his America-bashing abroad prompted one of his traveling companions to walk out of the room. “I got really upset and walked out,” David F. Kelley, a Republican who helped arrange the trip and was part of the entourage, recalled in an extensive piece in The Washington Post. Kelley said that during Sanders' 1988 trip, the now-2020 presidential hopeful acted inappropriately by criticizing his own country amid the Cold War. “When you are a critic of your country, you can say anything you want on home soil," he said. "At that point, the Cold War wasn’t over, the arms race wasn’t over, and I just wasn’t comfortable with it.” Sanders' criticism reportedly included knocking the cost of housing and health care in the U.S. while, at a banquet, blasting the U.S. for interventions in other countries. During an hour-long news conference upon his return to the U.S., Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, seemed unrepentant. SANDERS ACCUSES TRUMP, GOP OF 'SUPPRESSING VOTE' AS HE DOUBLES DOWN ON FELON VOTING PLAN “The fact that we were willing to be critical of the United States . . . I think that made them maybe more appreciative of our criticisms we made of their own society,” he said, according to the Post. “We were saying, ‘Yeah, in our country, we also have a housing crisis. Our housing in general is better than yours, but people are paying 40 percent of their income for housing. The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5 percent. The quality of your health care is not good, but in the United States, believe me, we have enormous problems in terms of our health-care system.’” The details are the latest to emerge from Sanders' past, as the Vermont senator establishes himself as perhaps the premier progressive among a vibrant insurgency within the Democratic Party. Sanders, along with others, have pushed big government policies like "Medicare-for-all" and free college tuition, which conservatives have derided as unrealistic and too expensive. "I did not see a hungry child. I did not see any homeless people,” Sanders said after his visit to the Soviet Union. He's also praised the Soviet Union's transportation system and defended Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for his efforts at improving education and health care. BERNIE SANDERS FLOATED CONSPIRACY THEORY ABOUT CIA INVOLVEMENT IN DOMESTIC BOMBINGS: REPORT "The revolution there is far deeper and more profound than I understood it to be. It really is a revolution in terms of values," he said of the Cuban revolution. In 1985, Sanders visited Nicaragua and said he was "impressed" by socialist leader Daniel Ortega. Other videos have shown Sanders defending bread lines and recalling the excitement he felt about Castro's revolution. "I was a kid ... and it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people," he said of the revolution. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Sanders faces a tough challenge from former Vice President Joe Biden, perceived as more of a moderate, for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination -- part of a field of over 20 candidates. While he has garnered significant support in the polls, he's also lagged behind Biden and faced criticism over some of his more unorthodox positions.