MIAMI – Controversy erupted as Democratic presidential hopeful Sanders seemingly praised murderous communist dictatorships. This was an especially inflammatory statement as Florida is home to a large number of Cubans who fled Castro’s communism. Sanders later doubled down on his remarks, saying “certainly it wasn’t perfect, but literacy is a good thing and inequality plummeted under Castro’s leadership”. He added “look, the truth is that there were very fine people on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Now I have heard, most likely exaggerated things, by the way, about there being some hunger and even a few executions. Nobody’s perfect and certainly not this country where there are 23 kinds of deodorant and children go hungry.” On the topic of a controversial statue of Lenin in Portland, Sanders said “it’s beautiful work of art and a part of history. We can’t just start tearing down statues because a few ignorant people complain about them. People like Lenin and Castro and Ortega fought to help the poor people who were rising up against rather ugly rich people. And besides, what about Trump, a hatemonger who refuses to condemn the KKK? The hysteria about socialism has to stop. Democratic socialism means that in a democratic, civilized society the wealthiest people and the largest corporations must pay their fair share of taxes. And yes, I know went on my honeymoon in the USSR and displayed a Soviet flag in my office in the 1980s, but that was a different time when I was not running for national office.” Sanders then posed for a selfie with a man wearing a Che shirt and a hammer and sickle face bandana.