CNN’s John Avlon Highlights Bernie Sanders’ Praise of Socialist Dictators and Policies

EXCERPT:

AVLON: “Add to this Sanders' now infamous honeymoon in Moscow, at the end of the Cold War, his praise for the Soviet Union’s public transportation and youth programs, while somehow never finsing time to meet with Nobel Prize-winning Russian dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, who lived in Vermont at the time, it may speak to Sanders' general sympathies at the time. Now, I’m not even getting into Sanders' 1970s advocacy for nationalizing most major industries or has since renounced call to abolish the CIA or his assertion to Vermont high school students in 1972 that some U.S. action in Vietnam was 'almost as bad as what Hitler did.' I’m simply pointing out that Sanders' vision of democratic socialism has extended far beyond the Danish-style welfare state, as he likes to claim. And you can bet that’s going to be an issue in the general election if his opponents don't make it one in the Democratic primary. And that’s your reality check."