BBB advocate Bernie Sanders extolled the USSR in 1988, three years later the empire collapsed Sanders has long praised the USSR and communist Cuba

As Bernie Sanders was building his political career as a Vermont mayor, he visited the Soviet Union in 1988 for a 10-day "honeymoon" and returned to America extolling how impressive the communist state was. Just three years later, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president and the red Soviet flag was pulled from the Kremlin.

Decades following Sanders’ self-described "very strange honeymoon," his trip has seemingly continued shaping his domestic and foreign policies and moved the dial of the Democratic Party to the left.

"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 in ‘88 when he returned home.

"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.’"

He praised the USSR for its public transportation system and its "absolutely beautiful" train stations with chandeliers, culture programs, youth programs and took shots at U.S. foreign policies under then-President Ronald Reagan.

"Let’s take the strengths of both systems," he added following the trip. "Let’s learn from each other."

This year, negotiations over President Biden's signature legislation, called Build Back Better - which Sanders helped design - is looming over Congress, and features policies similar to those Sanders applauded when they were implemented in other nations, such as an expansion of government health care and taxpayer-funded child care programs.

Thank you for referencing that article SJackson. Please note that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

How could the nation possibly have survived without the 17th Amendment? /super-sarc

Post-17th Amendment ratification Sen. Sanders got himself elected to the wrong government, the constitutionally limited power federal government to prove over and over again that socialist utopian fantasies (unaccountable, unconstitutional federal spending) don't work.

From related threads...

In other words, Sanders should have gotten himself elected to a state government whose taxpayers are willing to put up with the pain of high, unaccountable, 10th Amendment-based state taxes to prove over and over again that socialist spending doesn't work.

In fact, the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, the main author of the 14th Amendment, had clarified that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had left the care of the people to the states, not the federal government.

”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)

Justice Louis Brandeis later reflected on Bingham's words by introducing his "laboratories of democracy" metaphor to emphasize state powers, ultimately depending on whatever state spending programs the legal majority voters of a given state want.

"[...] a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." —Justice Louis Brandeis, Laboratories of Democracy.

Insights welcome.

The ultimate remedy for unconstitutionally big, alleged election-stealing, Democratic Party-pirated federal and state governments manufacturing crises to oppress everybody under their boots...

Consider that the states effectively have "veto power" over continued unpopular, unconstitutional actions of the feds.

More specifically, all the states can effectively “secede” from the unconstitutionally big federal government by doing the following.

Patriots need to primary federal and state elected officials who don't send voters email ASAP that clearly promises to do the following.

Federal and state lawmakers need to promise in their emails to introduce resolutions no later than 100 days after start of new legislative sessions that proposes an amendment to the Constitution to the states, the amendment limited to repealing the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments (16&17A), little or no discussion required imo.

In fact, I challenge the states to ram the repeal amendment for 16&17A through the ratification process faster than Nancy Pelosi irresponsibly rammed unconstitutional Obamacare through the House. /semi-sarc

Again, insights welcome.

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