Former President Barack Obama has a new leading staffer at his organization– a radical far-leftist who was ousted from the Minneapolis City Council for supporting an effort to defund cops.
On Monday, previous Minneapolis council member Phillipe Cunningham thanked Obama after starting a “new role at the Obama Foundation as the deputy director – U.S. lead of global leadership programs.” The move comes just months after voters ousted Cunningham, who backed a failed measure to defund city police, from the Minneapolis City Council in November. Cunningham in June 2020 likewise spoke at a defund-the-police rally, where the activist and 9 other council members promised to “end policing as we know it.” Cunningham’s challenger, LaTrisha Vetaw, stated that promise made her feel “silenced” and called public safety “the only issue” in the race.
Obama’s choice to neglect citizens in deep-blue Minneapolis and work with Cunningham for a leading position opposes the previous president’s rhetoric on the defund-the-police motion. Obama in November 2020 stated he would not defund authorities and slammed activists who utilize the expression. But Obama appeared alongside Cunningham at a virtual town hall when the activist was honestly calling to defund authorities– throughout that June 2020 occasion, Cunningham focused on the necessity to “completely transform our public safety system.”
Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president, declared in 2015 that those who state Democrats wish to defund authorities are “lying.”.
As part of the Obama Foundation, Cunningham will head the U.S. branch of the group’s worldwide management programs, which intends to offer “emerging leaders” with “values-based leadership development frameworks to help build their skills and scale their work across public, private, and nonprofit sectors.”It’s uncertain how Cunningham’s worths line up with the program– the Obama Foundation did not return an ask for talk about the hire and whether the group agrees with Cunningham’s position on defunding authorities.
Republican National Committee spokesperson Nathan Brand stated Obama’s brand-new hire reveals”there is no daylight between the looney left and the Democratic Party establishment.”
“With radical defund-the-police leaders like this in charge, it is no wonder Democrats are alienating more and more Americans and are set to lose in November,” Brand told the Washington Free Beacon. “From that perspective, Dems couldn’t have picked a better person to lead these efforts.”
Cunningham, a biological female who transitioned as a college junior, ended up being the first transgender man of color to be elected to public office in the United States in 2017. Approximately 3 years later on, following George Floyd’s death in the summer of 2020, the then-councilmember stood behind a giant “DEFUND POLICE” indication at a Minneapolis rally and argued that the city’s locals might “keep our own community safe” without police. Cunningham likewise applauded those who”threw the first bricks at police officers” during the Stonewall Riots in New York City.
One year later on, as the defund police movement lost its appeal, Cunningham did not pull back. In 2021, Cunningham backed an unprecedented amendment to decommission the city’s police department. The step, which Minneapolis citizens opposed by double digits, would have changed the city’s police department with a “Department of Public Safety” and abolished the city’s minimum funding requirements for police.
Cunningham’s choice to back that modification came as Minneapolis experienced a rise in violence. In the recently of 2021, the city marked a grim milestone with its 96th homicide, just one murder shy of its record level seen in 1995. That pattern has actually continued into this year– in late April, Minneapolis had 9 murders in 10 days, putting the city on track to exceed its 1995 numbers.
Obama has actually dealt with far-left activists beyond Cunningham. Defund-the-police organizer and MSNBC factor Brittany Packnett Cunningham served on the previous president’s policing task force. She, later on, argued that increasing criminal offense rates are the police’s fault.
“This rise in crime is not the fault of the movement, it’s actually the fault of the police,” Packnett Cunningham said during a June 2021 MSNBC appearance. “This has been our point all along—why should we keep funding systems and institutions that keep rendering themselves ineffective?”
