An initially thin crowd in Lafayette Square slowly filled out as people ventured out in the rain.

A volunteer men’s quartet with some, uh, minor tuning issues kicked things off with renditions of “The Star Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America.”

This gentleman came all the way from Oregon to demonstrate his frustration with the Fed in front of the White House.

The event was rife with the obligatory communist references, including this shirt purchased from mikechurch.com.

And some Mussolini references too. At least this guy got his first name right.

An event for the whole family.

For everything else, there’s MasterCard.

The opening speaker emphatically declared that the demonstrators were NOT right-wing extremists. This guy begged to differ.

Ah, there’s the tea we’ve been hearing about.

This young man was the only demonstrator I saw calling for Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to be hanged.

Meanwhile, a very different kind of protest was going on across the street.

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