Free Republic

SKUNKS AND BLUE BRACELETS AT CHECKPOINT CHARLIEThe 7th Street security checkpoint ("Checkpoint Charlie") for the inaugural parade was closest to the American Sector established by the DC Chapter of Free Republic.  Waiting there, I coincidentally ended up near DC Chapter member, bmwcyle, and Flora McDonald, a Richmond-area FReeper of long-standing. As we waited in the crowd (it wasn't orderly enough to be a line), pro-Bush people mostly tried to stay quiet in the face of some leftists (maybe ten percent of the crowd) occasionally and individually shouting anti-Bush or anti-war slogans. However, numerous Bush supporters and people who just came...

Inside protest headquarters, up a flight of stairs from a discount tire shop on New York Avenue, a recent coordinating meeting veered toward chaos. The 70 activists, who had plenty of ideas but no apparent leader, got bogged down in making a decision about whether the group had the power to make decisions. People needed to lean in to hear one another over the din made by a drummer warming up in another room. Someone confessed he'd made 150 copies of an important proposal but forgotten to bring them, and a baseball cap made its way around the circle --...

These folks are organizing to dampen the mood in D.C. on the 20th. There is even a professor from an ohio college asking for help with filming protests. another democrat group in their posting states their mission as obstructing or hampering this administration in any way possible.