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Outside the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge, where police shot and killed Alton Sterling, a crowd gathered Tuesday night to hold a vigil and protest the Justice Departments decision not to charge the officer. They held signs and gave speeches. They prayed and cried.

It was a vastly different scene from the one that had played repeatedly on cable news after Sterlings death last July, when activists blocked intersections, riot police arrived in armored vehicles and about 200 demonstrators were arrested.

In recent years, policing has been among the nations most visible issues as people outraged by use of force and racial disparities in punishment took to the streets under the Black Lives Matter banner. But activists say the movements efforts have entered a new phase one more focused on policy than protest prompted by the election of President Trump.

What people are seeing is that there are less demonstrations, said Alicia Garza, one of three women credited with coining the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. A lot of that is that people are channeling their energy into organizing locally, recognizing that in Trumps America, our communities are under direct attack.

The issue that galvanized the movement hasnt subsided.So far this year, police have shot and killed 23 unarmed people, a higher rate than in 2016, when 48 unarmed people were killed all year. Both years, about one in three of those people has been black.

Activists say theyre no less aware of those statistics than in years past. But like most of the political left, they were stunned by Trumps electoral victory in November. And in the months since, theyve grappled with the role of an antiracism movement at a time when political threats to other groups immigrants, Muslims and women have gained urgency and pushed more progressives into the streets in protest.

In interviews, more than half a dozen leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement said that last years presidential election prompted renewed focus on supporting other minority groups as well as amassing electoral power to fight an administration that has pledged to roll back Obama-era efforts to reshape policing practice. Those leaders who hail from various factions of the decentralized movement of individuals and organizations that have, at times, clashed said the reality of Trumps presidency has forced a reconsideration of strategy.

There was a lot of regrouping that had to happen within our movement and on the broader left to really think strategically, said Asha Rosa, the national organizing co-chair for the Black Youth Project 100.

Building bridges

The first major convening of young black activists during the Trump presidency came in April, when they met in Memphis for speeches, marches and workshops marking the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s Beyond Vietnam speech. They were joined by representatives of organized labor, the Fight for $15 minimum-wage effort, and a smattering of immigrant-advocacy and Muslim-rights groups.

The Black Lives Matter network is now one of more than 50 groups that have christened themselves The Majority, a coalition of progressives working on social justice issues, including LGBT rights and Islamaphobia.

Even before the election, some of the most prominent activists in the Black Lives Matter movement were expanding their focus to broader political efforts.

Garza helped develop the Womens March political platform and is an organizer for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a labor organization.

We are also doing a lot of work to build bridges between other movements and communities caught in the crosshairs of Trumps agenda, she added. Its a real opportunity for us to build a movement of movements.

DeRay Mckesson, a Baltimore-based activist whose live tweeting from Ferguson, Mo., during the 2014 protests earned him hundreds of thousands of followers, ran for mayor of Baltimore last year and, after that unsuccessful bid, joined newly elected Democratic National Committee ChairmanTom Perezs transition team.

He has spent much of the year rolling out policy platforms and mobilizing tools, including the Resistance Manual and a project called OurStates, a site that helps people combat Republican policies in their state.

Garza and Mckesson also have claimed the spoils of relative celebrity. Garza has been a fixture on the paid speakers circuit while helping secure funding from major donors for the Black Lives Matter network. Mckesson has been mingling with cultural luminaries and political types, practicing his philosophy that the movement needs to work within the system.

(Grand Rapids Police Department)

Under the media radar

Black Lives Matters transition from street protests to policy is not unusual, said Stephen Zunes, a University of San Francisco professor who studies social movements. Its through such work that a movements priorities like mandatory use of officer body cameras can become national standards, he said.

Thats actually the way effective social movements often work or behave, Zunes said, pointing to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in the wake of the financial crisis as a counterexample. What the Occupy people did not learn, or by and large do, is go do the lobbying, the organizing to make change happen. They wound up fetishizing the occupy part, and then, by and large, it fizzled.

Much of the push for policy change is being driven by local chapters of Black Lives Matter, under the national medias radar, Garza notes.

In Memphis and Atlanta, activists have focused on challenging themoney bail system, their term for the widespread practice of holding people in jail who are unable to pay even small amounts required by courts to assure they will show up for trial.

Poor defendants who stand to lose jobs, apartments and custody of their children as they sit in jail often plead guilty to lesser crimes without seeing a judge or jury.

Local Black Lives Matter activists raised more than $33,000 tobail black mothers out of jail just before Mothers Day, said Mary Hooks, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Atlanta.

The organization also is pushing the city council to make possession of a small quantity of marijuana punishable by a $75 ticket rather than arrest, and it is demanding that Atlantas mayor examine how the police force has been militarized, Hooks said.

Activists note that these efforts rarely make local news, let alone receive the national attention given to Ferguson protests after the fatal police shooting of a black teenager, Michael Brown.

Its not because were not organizing, said Shanelle Matthews, a spokeswoman for the Black Lives Matter Global Network. I think the media companies, vying for the very little brain space in peoples minds, are reporting on what they think people want to hear about right now. And thats Trump.

Making change locally

The Trump presidency is challenging the movements goals in another way.

In April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered Justice Department officials to review oversight agreements that the Obama administration put in place for police departments that showed wide racial disparities in policing practices. Since 2009, the agency has investigated 25 law enforcement agencies and entered monitoring and reform agreements with 14 of them.

Advocates suspect Sessions plans to walk away from the Obama administrations efforts to reduce the number of people killed by police and contend with the disproportionate toll such shootings take on black and Latino Americans.

During Sessionss Senate confirmation hearing in January, he described federal investigations into police departments as damaging to officer morale and implied that the Justice Departments scrutiny of police work had contributed to officer deaths.

This must not continue, Sessions told the Senate.

Still, the movements impact has been visible in some communities. In recent controversial encounters between police and unarmed black people, law enforcement has responded faster and with more regret than seen in years past. In suburban Dallas on Tuesday, an officer was fired three days after he fatally shot a 15-year-old boy sitting in a car. The officer was later charged with murder.

In North Charleston, S.C., former officer Michael Slager who was charged with fatally shooting Walter Scott in the back after a traffic stop pleaded guilty to using excessive force last week. And last month in Grand Rapids, Mich., police released body-camera footage a few weeks after officers held a group of unarmed black boys, ages 12 to 14, at gunpoint.

Activists there say the fact that officers were even wearing body cameras was a result of community pressure. In 2015, community groups and city officials released a report on local policing that included a 12-item to-do list that included equipping every officer with a body camera. Elected officials and the city manager have promised to make a priority of the entire plan.

Activism looks like a lot of different things: It can look like voting, it can look like protest, it can look like calling your representatives, said Aditi Juneja, a law student who works with Campaign Zero. The question shouldnt be, Will this activism be sustained? because for many people the work is very personal and it isnt going to stop. The question is how it will sustain and how it will continue to manifest.

Ashley Cusick in Baton Rouge contributed to this report.

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Turning away from street protests, Black Lives Matter tries a new tactic in the age of Trump - Washington Post

In 1936, prior to German boxing champ Max Schmelings first fight with the up-and-coming Joe Louis, Max was watching a movie of Louis in the ring. I sink I see somesing! said the German. He noticed that Louis had a habit of lowering his left hand after a left jab.

That observation paid off big for Schmeling, who crashed across with a match-winning right-hand blow that rendered Louis unable to continue.

Now I sink I see somesing far more important than any boxing match.

I think I see a way for the Republicans to land a blow that will eviscerate the Democrats by causing massive defections in their ranks.

This bit of background explains why this idea chose me to connect with. I didnt meet my first Republican until the age of 25! But thats not amazing if you grew up in North Carolina in the era when Republicans were very rare.

The Democrats you met were fine, normal, wonderful people salt of the earth, oregano of the universe. They worked hard, played fair, attended church, supported the Boy- and the Girl Scouts and the Red Cross, went uncomplainingly to fight in World Wars, aided the poor and obeyed laws. The men didnt beat their wives and did not knowingly associate with those who did, and they lived praiseworthy lives keynoted by what we now call traditional values.

The lives of all those Democrats I grew up with were light-years away from todays Schumerites and Pelosicrats.

Wars have been won when military intelligence learns the enemy is weak around the middle. Thats Step-1 in divide-and-conquer. They may never think of it. They may not realize it. They may want to slap you or slug you if you bring it up. But never mind that.

The majority of those who call themselves Democrats may not be Democrats at all!

Theres a chasm separating those who run the Democrat machinery and the Democrats I grew up with. That chasm is wide and tempting.

The Republicans should get busy and find a polite way to ask the millions of Democratic voters, Are you sure youre still a Democrat?

The Republicans should then utilize the ways and means of letting most of them know theyre not!

Former Democratic presidents, like President John F. Kennedy, would not be allowed to speak at Democratic Conventions these days. Abortion! Contraceptives handed out to high school students! Government-run medicine! Fuhgeddaboudit!

Are you going to tell me theres a similarity of political DNA linking todays leading Democrats and the likes of Scoop Jackson, Hubert Humphrey, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson? Shake the tree of Democratic discontent and dodge all the nice falling fruit.

Theres no need for secrecy. Take the provable truths only theres no need to fabricate or exaggerate. Take those truths, put it all out there, spread it around and pound it home.

Are you sure youre still a Democrat? is the question. Reagan gave us a good quote, namely, I didnt leave the Democratic Party. The party left me! Then, using media, town halls, word of mouth, everything short of carrier pigeons, lay out, as comic Jimmy Durante used to say, da conditions dat prevail!

Hillary Clinton offers a nice contrast between the Democratic Party that once attracted them and todays conditions that prevail. The leading Democrats today apparently hate Trump more than they love Americans. Weve got every kind of falsification of government figures twisted to make the Obama crowd look not-so-bad. Weve even got falsification of temperature data to make climate change seem more plausible. Weve got Loretta Lynch and her sneaky airport visit with Bill Clinton. Weve got Debbie Wasserman Schultz greasing the skids for Hillary who, without the cheating, may well have lost the Democratic nomination to a socialist independent.

Weve got the attempted flood of Mideast refugees who could have been much better served by American support of safe zones. Weve got hostility against Israel (the only democracy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean), plus Susan Ross, John Podestas emails alongside Hillarys, rock-solid obstruction of all Trump initiatives, breathtaking quotes from the DNC team of Perez and Ellison. One of our talking points can be just one word Chicago!

The Vietnam War could have ended much earlier if the arrogant peace movement in America, instead of denouncing those who joined them late, had taken the position of Welcome, Brother!

The GOP should praise the Democratic Party of old. And let this huge mass of Democrats-by-Amnesia know theyre not being attacked. Theyre being reminded. The Happy-Days-Are-Here-Again Democratic Party has tectonically shifted. Maybe millions of you would be more comfortable as Republicans today.

This initiative needs no funding, no meetings, no RNC committee approval.

Hey there, Brother. Theres a good possibility you belong with us!

Are you sure youre still a Democrat?

Asking people if theyre sure theyre what they most likely are is not a static absurdity. It once was unthinkable to ask someone, Are you sure youre female? No more! Rodney Dangerfield once said the most romantic thing a woman ever said to him in bed is Are you sure youre not a cop?

Its much nicer and possibly nation-saving to ask, Are you sure youre still a Democrat?

Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact media@wnd.com.

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NOT YOUR FATHER'S PARTY - WND.com

Joe Manchin, the Senates most conservative and Donald Trump-friendly Democrat, is facing a primary challenger. Paula Swearengin, a coal miners daughter and environmental activist, plans to run for the senators West Virginia seat in the 2018 Democratic primary election.

The Aftermath of James Comey's Dismissal

Manchin is now facing opponents from the left and the right. West Virginia Republican Representative Evan Jenkins announced on Monday that he will run against the senator in 2018. Manchin has supported most of presidents cabinet picks, and voted in line with the presidents agenda more often than notand more than any other Senate Democrat. That could help him win re-election in a state that Trump won by double digits in November, but it has also made Manchin a top target of the activist left at a time when progressives are calling for all-out opposition to the president.

Swearengin has the backing of Brand New Congress, a group formed by former Bernie Sanders campaign staffers and volunteers to support primary opponents against Democrats and Republicans in 2018. She also has the support of Justice Democrats, a group whose mission statement is to run congressional campaigns that lead to a progressive and un-bought congress in 2018 and WeWillReplaceYou.org, a group that says it is dedicated to challenging establishment Democrats unwilling to resist Trumps agenda.

Her platform calls for universal healthcare, free in-state public university tuition, and a multi-billion dollar investment in West Virginias economy. I plan to primary Joe Manchin in 2018, and Im asking you to stand with me, and hopefully, hopefully we can build a better tomorrow, she says in a video announcing her candidacy on Tuesday.

The primary challenge highlights a central tension in the Democratic Party as it seeks to rebuild after its 2016 presidential election loss. Manchins defenders argue that hes not only an invaluable member of the party, but the kind of lawmaker who can offer lessons to other Democrats hoping to win in red states. The senators critics, on the other hand, believe he represents a centrist-establishment-status quo that the party must reject in favor of a progressive-populist agenda. The race will also test how well a Sanders-style progressive candidate can do in a conservative state.

Manchin starts out with advantages that his primary challenger lacks. The senator is well known, has a proven ability to raise money, and a deep political network as well as the support of the Democratic establishment in both Washington and West Virginia.

Everybody knows who I am. The state knows me, Im branded pretty well, but I would never, ever discourage anybody from running, Manchin said in a brief interview in the Capitol when asked about the primary and general election challengers. The process is the process, its a wonderful process, and everybody can jump in, he said, but later added: You either run scared, or unopposed, so you always run tough, hard.

Its possible that a more left-leaning primary challenger could tap into the kind of grassroots fundraising that has benefited previously unknown candidates such as Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgias sixth congressional district, who is believed to have set a record by raising more than $8.3 million in his race. Even if that happens, however, there are reasons to doubt whether a progressive candidate can succeed in West Virginia.

Though West Virginia was once a Democratic stronghold, the partys power has significantly eroded in recent years. The state currently has a Democratic governor, Jim Justice. But West Virginia voters have picked the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 2000. Republicans took control of the state legislature in 2014, seizing power from Democrats who had held a majority in both the state Senate and state House for over two decades. Jenkins, the Republican congressman challenging Manchin, used to be a Democrat until 2013 when he switched to the Republican Party.

Even West Virginia Democrats lean right. A majority of the people who voted in the states Democratic primary during the 2016 presidential election identified as either conservative or moderate. Only 17 percent identified as very liberal, while 28 percent described themselves as somewhat liberal, according to exit polling.

Sanders beat out Hillary Clinton during the West Virginia primary. In exit polling, however, a plurality of primary voters said the next president should pursue a less liberal policy agenda than former President Barack Obama, including 51 percent of people who voted for Sanders. Its possible that many voters who pulled the lever for Sanders did so as a rejection of Clinton.

I think that folks looking at the primary election results are drawing the wrong conclusion if they think that means that Joe Manchin is vulnerable to a challenge from his left, Mike Plante, a West Virginia Democratic strategist said. Bernie won, most of all, because he was not Hillary Clinton. He was the outsider, and he was anti-establishment. Plante added: West Virginia is not just a state leaning to the right. In actuality, it has become one of the reddest, red states.

Some West Virginia liberals believe, however, that the Democratic Party could win back ground it has lost in the state if it unapologetically embraced a progressive-populist agenda, instead of fielding conservative Democrats, like Manchin.

I believe Bernie Sanders agenda should be our partys platform in West Virginia. It is the only democratic platform that has had success here, said Chris Regan, the former vice chair for the West Virginia Democratic Party who endorsed Sanders during the primary. The way I see it you lose voters on both sides of the spectrum with the Manchin strategy. Youre trying to appeal to conservative voters, but they can just go and vote for a Republican, and at the same time you alienate progressive liberal voters.

Even if there is an opening for a populist economic message in West Virginia, however, that doesnt necessarily mean any candidate who runs in a mold similar to Sanders will succeed.

While Swearengin may not have much of a political profile in the state, she appears to have something of a reputation, or at the very least an online presence, as an environmental activist.

One video uploaded to YouTube shows Swearengin asking, Whos going to clean up the mess when coals gone? and saying: Fracking is not acceptable either. Her website states: The question we face today is: What are we going to do when the coal is gone? And make no mistake its going. No one has given us an answer that doesnt require the sacrifice of our health and our environment. I believe our future is in building a 21st-century, clean economy.

The coal industry is indeed under threat from market forces, the most prominent of which is the cheap cost of natural gas. The coal industrys decline, which Republicans have blamed on government regulations and a Democrat-waged war on coal, has lead to questions over what can be done to fill the economic void it has left behind.

That said, Democratic primary voters in the state wont necessarily be receptive to a message that its time to move on from the industry. In 2016, polling in West Virginias second congressional district found that 65 percent of Democratic primary voters believed that supporting coal jobs should be a major priority, according to Plante, the West Virginia Democratic strategist.

Plante added that polling in 2014 in the states first congressional district indicated that a majority of Democratic voters preferred a candidate who would promote West Virginias coal industry, and stand up to the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] to protect coal jobs, over a candidate who would move the state away from its reliance on coal and build a new future by creating a more diversified energy economy.

Coal is a cultural touchstone here, Regan said. To say that you are against it is seen as taking a stand against West Virginia itself. Its very much a part of the identity of the state. He added: I think a message of bringing back jobs, and bringing healthcare to everyone could be a winning progressive message in this state. But you cant be hostile to coal. That just paints you into a corner.

A primary challenge against Manchin could divide Democratic voters in West Virginia, and leave the senator more vulnerable to a general election challenge, even if he prevails in the primary. On the other hand, a progressive challenger to Manchin could work in his favor if it helps him remind a conservative electorate that hes no liberal.

The senator reportedly dared activists to try and unseat him during a conference call in February. What you ought to do is vote me out, the senator said, according to Politico. Im not changing. Find somebody else who can beat me and vote me out.

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West Virginia's Conservative Democrat Joe Manchin Gets a Primary ... - The Atlantic

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has certainly been making waves since he assumed his post earlier this year, but his most controversial statement might have been his excommunication of any pro-life Democrat from his partys enforced orthodoxy.

According to the Huffington Post, Perez said: Every Democrat, like every American, should support a womans right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.

His statement is consistent with the Democratic Party platform, which states, In addition to expanding the availability of affordable family planning information and contraceptive supplies, we believe that safe abortion must be part of comprehensive maternal and womens health care and included as part of Americas global health programming. Abortion must be a part of all American health-care efforts around the globe, which presumably means here at home as well.

This statement responded to the recent uproar over Democratic Omaha mayoral candidate Heath Mello, whom progressive publication Rewire has characterized as an aggressively anti-choice Democrat. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders made headlines while campaigning for Mello when he told NPR, If we are going to protect a womans right to choose, at the end of the day were going to need Democratic control over the House and the Senate, and state governments all over this nation, and we have got to appreciate where people come from, and do our best to fight for the pro-choice agenda. But I think you just cant exclude people who disagree with us on one issue.

Obviously, there are two very different visions of the Democratic Party here. There is the Democratic establishment, represented by Perez and the official platform, which are committed to ideological purity and firmly entrenched as a pro-abortion party. On the other side, an alliance seems possible between pro-life and pro-choice Democrats. Mello and Sanders have disagreed on the issue of abortion historically (although Mello does seem to be trying to temper his statements and voting record), but they come together on many other issues so are willing to sacrifice ideological purity to get Democrats into office.

The Democratic Party is stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, and neither option shows an obvious path to future success as Democrats look forward to 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 presidential year.

The party can take the hardline vision of Perez and its official platform. They can tell pro-life Democrats that they have no place in the party. Yet this appears to be a losing strategy. According to a 2015 poll from Gallup, 55 percent of American adults think abortion should be illegal in only a few circumstances or illegal in all circumstances. Although the survey does not get more specific than this, a majority of Americans do not favor unfettered access to abortion. Most American adults want limits. Throwing this majority of American adults out of the party doesnt seem to be an effective way to gain voters.

When you couple this with political movements such as the American Solidarity Party already in place to attract people who are economically liberal but socially conservative, these pro-life Democrats have an option to escape to if they are not comfortable with the Republican Party as the traditional pro-life party.

However, consider the scenario if the Democratic Party goes the direction of Mello and Sanders. To many people it seems reasonable to agree to disagree on a certain issue and work together for those items of agreement. Economic justice would be a rather obvious issue for the Democratic Party to unite around. It was the message Sanders rode to a serious chance at the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016. It is similar to the approach the Tea Party took when they united around economic issues such as lower taxes and reduced government spending. Perhaps Tea Party members did not agree on everything, but they were extraordinarily focused on a few issues that brought them together.

The problem with that in this case is many people on the Left think economic justice is not possible without access to abortion. Bryce Covert, the economic policy editor at ThinkProgress, wrote for The New York Times, Any woman who has had to decide whether she could afford to keep a baby will most likely be able to tell you that economics is deeply embedded in her choice.

Emily Crockett wrote in Rolling Stone, They [pro-choice advocates] wondered if Democrats will ever stop automatically treating reproductive freedom like a mere social issue, and start recognizing it as critical to womens economic and social equality.

Emily Arrowood of U.S. News & World Report went as far as to say that Progressives wouldnt stomach a Democratic candidate who questioned the necessity of Brown v. Board of Education, so why might we make an exception when it comes to womens economic well-being?

Clearly, a branch of the Democratic Party is not open to this type of moderate style and big-tent ideology. As much as exiling pro-lifers from the Democratic Party will push away a majority of the population, the opposite wing of the Democratic Party will be upset if abortion rights are not considered an essential part of being a Democrat.

It is clear that the Democratic Party has to make a choice, but it is not clear which choice will ultimately help them compete politically. Either option is going to isolate certain voters and cause them to reconsider voting for the Democratic Party.

If pro-lifers are not allowed in the party, they are going to find somewhere else to vote. If progressives dont feel that the Democratic Party platform goes far enough, it would not be surprising to see a progressive movement take a more extreme position on this issue and effectively split the Democratic Party in a way that will never be able to overcome a Republican majority if that party manages to remain unified. Ironically, it could look very much like the large number of progressives who decided to write in Sanders name rather than vote for the establishment candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, or what happened to George Bush Sr. because of Ross Perot in 1992.

A party divided over a central issue in the American two-party system is going to have a very hard time winning many elections nationally or even locally.

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Abortion Split Between Sanders And Perez Spells Unrest For Democrats - The Federalist

Kansas City Star

Who are Kansas lobbyists taking to dinner? Kansas City Star Lobbyists spent $2,044 treating Rep. Adam Lusker, a Frontenac Democrat, to meals and other niceties through March. That's nearly twice what Lusker received from lobbyists during the first three months of 2016 and $556 more than he received during the ...

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Who are Kansas lobbyists taking to dinner? - Kansas City Star