Good morning, Washington. Freedom Plaza may be a little crowded this morning as antiwar and anti-Wall Street protesters make room for Mayor Vince Gray to kick off the D.C. Full Democracy Freedom Rally and March, planned to coincide with this weekend’s official dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial. more ›

According to a recent WTOP survey, ten percent of District of Columbia residents say they support the Tea Party. more ›

Installation artists Jeff Greenspan and Hunter Fine -- the pair who have been moonlighting as "urban trappers" around New York City of late -- brought their internet sensation to the District on Sunday afternoon, setting up Tea Party Traps near the White House and on the National Mall. Greenspan and Fine were kind enough to allow DCist to tag along and watch the social experiment unfold. more ›

Virginia, the undisputed queen of all vanity plates, might soon produce a new plate template that would, according to NBC, "express solidarity with the spirit of the Tea Party movement." (You know, because nothing quite expresses your disgust with high taxes than slapping "Don't Tread on Me" on the rear of your Ford Focus.) more ›

Pandas: objects of love and hate, nicknames and loss. The Chinese took back our Butterstick, then insulted our panda keeping -- and, by extension, us. But maybe this proto-Tea Party kid's got the right idea: love it or leave it. more ›

Based on the various reports that we've seen, and aside from a few shouting matches, Saturday's "Restoring Honor" rally appeared to go off without major incident. Though those moving into a dorm room at George Washington University while tens of thousands of Tea Partiers were plodding their way to the National Mall, could be excused if they didn't feel like things were going so smoothly. The GW Hatchet has this report about Saturday's move-in process, during which many students and parents dodged the angry mobs while shifting those steamer trunks and cheap microwaves into the dorms. more ›

We could have gone on for thousands and thousands of words about Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, the NAACP-sponsored "Reclaiming the Dream" counter-rally, and what it says about the country and us. But these images -- captured by DCist staff photographers James Calder, Kevin Carroll and Kyle Gustafson, and our DCist Flickr pool -- had enough to say on their own. more ›

I often prefer things to be broken down in simple visual terms; sometimes you just get a better sense of what's happening that way. Now, granted, the Tea Party guide to D.C. was already fairly clear. But Laura Olin did the Partiers a real solid, and laid out this handy Google map. Now the knowledge of whether they are in a safe part of D.C. is just a click away! more ›

We're only days away from Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin's August 28 "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial, where thousands of Tea Party activists and fellow conservatives are likely to gather for a "non-political event that pays tribute to America's service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and honor." Of course, with so many folks coming into town from all over the country, many for the first time, there's bound to be a bunch of questions about where to eat and stay in the District, how to get around, what to expect, and so on. more ›

Some of the everyday Tea Party protesters who descended on Washington last week may well be in favor of D.C. getting full voting rights in Congress, but bigger names associated with the movement are much less supportive. Newly minted Washington Post blogger (and occasional DCist contributor) Dave Weigel was following the Tea Partiers all over town, and he asked former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, lately of FreedomWorks, whether he thought the District of Columbia deserved a voting rep in the House.

"How do you buy the wrong thing by giving up the wrong thing?" asked Dick Armey of FreedomWorks. "The D.C. gun control laws are in violation of the Second Amendment, and they say we will less violate your constitutional rights if you give us what is unconstitutional? This is a city. It's a district. It's not a state. If they really have this concern, let this city return to being part of Maryland. In the marketplace you always trade away what you value less for what you value more."

The Tea Party Express wraps up a whirlwind national tour tomorrow with a rally in D.C. to coincide with the deadline for filing federal tax returns. After a press conference at 9 a.m., the protesters will decamp to Freedom Plaza, where they will host a "People's Tax Revolt" at 11 a.m. more ›

What's a lovely spring day in the District of Columbia good for? Spewing vitriol! Yesterday, residents of the District had their choice of irrational flavors: deranged right or nutbar left. The National Mall grounds nearest to the Capitol played host to a tea-party rally -- it does not ever stop being funny that adults voluntarily self-identify as "tea partiers" -- while various lefty activists assembled at the White House. more ›

All this comes in the context of Cuccinelli's recent push to remove language dealing with sexual orientation from state university anti-discrimination policies. more ›

The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire reported last night that Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) has fired off a letter to WMATA General Manager John Catoe complaining that the transit agency did not adequately prepare for last Saturday's 9/12 Tea Party protests, in some cases leaving participants stranded. The Post also has the story. more ›

So, you decided to take a nice leisurely stroll around the National Mall today, eh? You probably ran into a sizable contingent of tea party protesters. The AP and WTOP are reporting that somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people made their way towards the Mall, completely obstructing Pennsylvania Avenue NW between 14th Street and the Capitol building along the way. more ›

Sure enough, today's Teabag protest at Lafayette Square was over well before 2 p.m. By the time DCist checked back at the park at around 1:30 p.m., the entire area had been cleared, including Pennsylvania Ave., by the U.S. Park Police and Secret Service. What had been a drizzle was by then pouring rain, and when asked what had happened, one Park Police officer standing behind a line of yellow caution tape alluded to the weather being a safety concern. But that's not what really happened, according to the Associated Press: "... someone hurled a package in an apparent act of defiance meant to echo the rebellion of the Boston Tea Party and related tax protests around the country." And what was in the package? Why teabags, of course. more ›

This year's most double entendre-rich protest movement arrived in front of the White House this morning without the benefit of the objects of ridicule themselves. As the Post reported earlier, the so-called Tea Party protesters were greeted with bad news while they set up for planned protests at Lafayette Square and the U.S. Treasury building today: they didn't have permission to dump a million tea bags in the park, and they lacked a permit to demonstrate in front of Treasury. No massive public teabagging allowed, after all. more ›

When in the closing days of 2006 we looked back on the year in D.C. voting rights, we optimistically hoped that 2007 would finally be the year that saw some movement on enfranchising the District's residents. Movement, yes; resolution, not so much. So as we wind down 2007, we're again left hoping that maybe the coming year will be the one. more ›

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Sure, it's December and we're all preoccupied with holiday cheer and making plans for that one New Year's party that will finally be worth the all the hype. But even though they've suffered some setbacks this year, D.C. voting rights activists are pushing the cause through the holiday season. On Thursday, December 6, the D.C. Council will hold a hearing to consider legislation that would place large electronic billboards outside the John A. Wilson Building... more ›

Every time mid-October comes around, D.C.’s population swells for a weekend. Alums and non-alums alike descend on the District to partake in the ritual that is Howard University’s homecoming. Unlike some other schools with which you might be familiar, the traditional football game is almost an after-thought, albeit a sold out after-thought. Large, celebrity hosted parties and concerts are the big draws. But if you want to avoid long lines of overly pretentious people or... more ›

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom... more ›

It's going to be a bright and beautiful day here in Washington, and since we've had some less than sunny headlines so far this summer, we'd like to take a moment to point some good news. Believe it or not, your daily walks to work could actually begin getting easier. How, you say? Well we're just so glad you asked. It seems the city has begun spending money on rubberized sidewalks, which last longer than... more ›

As readers of DCist may well know, the on-going saga as what to name RFK Stadium continues, even though city officials promised on the day of the Nationals home opener that the stadium would officially be christened "Armed Forces Field at RFK Stadium." Being that the deal has not yet materialized, another name may now be in the running. In an opinion piece posted on Fox News' website yesterday, CATO Institute policy analyst, blogger, and... more ›

At the DNC convention in Boston today, some of of the District's brightest political lumniaries participated in an age-old practice of protesting taxation without representation by what they're calling a "Second Boston Tea Party" by dumping North Carolina tea into Boston Harbor. The D.C. Delegation to the convention, according to the Post, includes 45 people: 3 pledged to Dean, 12 to Kerry, 5 to Al Sharpton, and the rest uncommitted. more ›