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Thousands of protesters have gathered on Washington's K Street, known as the home of lobbying in the nation's capital.

The demonstration includes participants in the Occupy D.C. encampment and other groups sympathetic to their message about income inequality. They're asking lawmakers to represent the 99 percent of ordinary Americans, rather than the wealthy.

Crowds began gathering on K Street shortly before noon Wednesday. They chanted, "Banks got bailed out. We got sold out," and "Whose street? Our street."

The protesters included people from unions, as well as residents from other cities, including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

District of Columbia transportation officials have said the demonstration may impact the evening rush hour and are urging drivers to avoid the area.

Occupiers are also expected to make their way to the White House and the Supreme Court on Wednesday evening.
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Take Back The Capitol protesters, meanwhile, set up shop on the National Mall earlier this week.

While not officially affiliated with the Occupy movement, protesters have traveled to Washington to demonstrate against many of the same issues. http://www.wjla.com/articles/2011/12/k-street-protests-occupy-take-bac
k-the-capitol-set-to-protest-lobbyists-70033.html

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This is also a fundamental difference in the nature of the Tea Part Movement and the Occupy Wall Street Protests. One seeks to enage in a debate and then win that debate at the ballot box. The other seeks to eliminate the debate and force conformity their agenda. This is why we see many Tea Party candidates running for everything from President to Dog Catcher but the OWS will not have candidates of their own. They want to dictate the results, not engage in the process.

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Almost half of Republicans polled said they aren’t happy with their party leaders’ job performances, with approval dropping 23 points since January to just 46 percent. And voters who associate with the tea party hold an even more dismal view of their House and Senate leaders — only 37 percent of tea partiers approve of the way GOP honchos on the Hill are doing their jobs.
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And as the Tea Party has become more well known, voters have begun viewing the movement much more negatively, the study also showed.

Slightly less than half of those surveyed — 43 percent — have an unfavorable of the Tea Party. Back in Feb. 2010, just 25 percent saw the movement negatively.
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As Republican leadership has increasingly incorporated Tea Partiers in Congress, that emphasis on conviction has been painted as arbitrary stubbornness and that outsider status has been portrayed as dangerous ignorance. http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/25/poll-tea-partiers-disappointed-i
n-hill-leaders/ Tea Party lost its way:

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Hate is a mental disorder. Hate is a form of insanity. The problem is that the Tea Party followers were so riled up by hate fomented by Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Right Wing Talk Radio, FoxNews, and others in the Right Wing Echo chamber, they were unable to see that they were voting not only against their own economic interest but their families' interest, and the country's interest. http://ezinearticles.com/?Disappointed-Tea-Party-Followers-Likely-Help
-Democrats-In-2012&id=5385229 what those leading the Tea Party did; they played on frustration, anger and hate, and their followers are paying the price.

Certainly not all of them, and maybe not even the majority, but the extremes brought into politics by the Tea Party, as it was directed the past few years, has alienated moderates and even many who have voted Republican for ages. The same may be true of Occupy, time will tell, it's still in its infancy and will be for a long time to come. So to laud the results of the Tea Pary's rise to power and denigrate Occupy, which hasn't even BEGUN to gain power (if it ever will), is deliberately blind partisanship, nothing else, in my opinion.

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The old process doesn't work. They are trying to fix the process.

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Bingo CTS. Because Occupy doesn't play by the existing rules, we're condemned. Rarely is it noticed that the existing rules DON'T WORK; the Tea Pary played by them and suffered the results. TPTB on all sides have learned how to manipulate the "rules" to their own advantage, so how does playing by their rules accomplish anything? The process doesn't just not work, it's bought and paid for, totally broken and won't work to make any major changes which will improve the situation. If we're ever to make headway, we need to evolve in how we confront the wrongs in our society.

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Protesters from around the country occupied K Street this afternoon, including dozens of Minnesotans.

The demonstration was the combined effort of numerous groups joining up with OccupyDC to send a message against corporate money in politics. K Street is home to America's most powerful lobbying firms. http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2011/12/occupy_protesters_k_street.
php Occupy movement is both bringing media attention to things other groups have had little or no success with and increasing the numbers of those groups' protests. It's not about OccupyWallStreet, if you note, it's OccupyDC, a local group just like us, and each local group decides on "actions" they wish to take. That's a large part of the reason other groups have joined them in actions such as this, and I think it's great that Occupy is being effective in bringing the issue of other groups to the nation's attention.

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More than five dozen protesters upset about what they call corporate greed and the excessive influence of money in politics were arrested Wednesday after shutting down K Street, home to many of Washington's lobbying firms, in a mass demonstration that snarled midday traffic in the nation's capital.
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Demonstrators from across the U.S. converged for the Washington march that included participants from Occupy Wall Street encampments as well as other groups, including unions, sympathetic to their message of income inequality.

Organizers said they expected several thousand people in Washington this week for days of activism
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Earlier, 11 protesters affiliated with the American Dream Movement, which advocates for the working class, were arrested and charged with obstructing a public highway. Later Wednesday, about a dozen more were arrested at the Supreme Court. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57339058/occupy-d.c-targets-lobbyi
sts-offices/

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Borrowing language from the Occupy movement and drawing demonstrators "from Occupy sites from coast to coast," the movement says its goal is to affect congressional legislation.

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Ergo, apparently it is not just the Occupy people who are practicing civil disobedience, and being arrested.

I think it's great they're finally getting around to DC, which is where they should be, and I think it's great they're getting press for other groups--AND that the other groups are being reported, the MSM isn't just claiming it's all Occupy protesters.

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Scores of activists converged on the office of Senator Scott Brown today to protest his inability, they said, to deliver jobs to Massachusetts as promised.

The demonstrators crammed into Brown’s office in the late morning, some plunking themselves into chairs and couches, to ask for a meeting with the Republican Senator.

The Bay State group of about 250 people, many of them unemployed, arrived in Washington Monday night aboard five buses, according to Jason Stephany, the spokesman for MassUniting, which bills itself as “a coalition of neighbors, community groups, faith organizations and labor united in the fight for good jobs, corporate accountability, and stronger communities.”

“We asked for a meeting with the Senator Brown,” said Jay Chambers, 38, an unemployed iron worker from Charlestown. “I had a question for him: Where are the jobs he campaigned for?” “Among the senator’s top priorities is job creation,” and he will continue to “work with good will” to pass job-creating legislation, Kinzel said in the hallway outside Brown’s office.

The visit to Washington by the Massachusetts activists is part of a nationwide effort this week to bring attention to the unemployed, said Stephany, noting that groups from 46 states fanned out across Capitol offices. http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2011/12/activists-o
ccupy-senator-brown-office/QtsJth48lSlpwr5xEumfTO/index.html again, it's not just Occupy, and the other groups are engaging in civil disobedience as well. It's a coordinated effort which hit numerous legislators' offices. Some legislators are "getting it", that all they want is to talk to them. Others, not so much.

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From all accounts, only four of about forty targeted Republicans bothered to show their faces to their constituents. For example, a couple of floors down, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin pinned a note out front declaring appointments only, and then locked his door.

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The Occupy Wall Street movement took its rage from the grounds of city parks to Capitol Hill Tuesday, sitting in outs multiple legislators’ offices including the office of Missouri U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R.Harrisonville

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Groups from different states went to lawmakers' offices Tuesday.

About a dozen people were conducting what they called a sit-in outside the office of House Speaker John Boehner. One of them, John Reat from Ohio -- the state Boehner represents -- told CNN, "I've been unemployed for 24 months, and that's why I'm here. And we're not leaving until we talk to the speaker, or they close the building, whichever comes first."

One group of protesters said they planned to conduct a sit-in at the office of Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip. About 20 people went to Kyl's office saying they wanted a forum to be heard. "All of Arizona is in the dark. We don't know what he's thinking," one said. "We'll stay until he hears us."

That group also went to a conference room outside the office of another Maryland Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer, and spoke to his aides. http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/440-occupy/8771-prote
sters-wage-sit-ins-at-congressional-offices-in-dc]

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Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., met with a group of about two dozen Occupy protesters at his office in the nation’s capital Tuesday, the day after 14 demonstrators were arrested at his Bend and Medford offices for refusing to leave as they demanded a series of town halls in the 2nd Congressional District.

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About 25 people visited the office of Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland. He spoke to the group outside his office and told them he sympathizes with the unemployed.

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When we arrived at Reichert's office things didn't look very hopeful. Reichert was out, and not expected back, his receptionist told us, and besides, he had a very, very busy schedule. We were welcome to make an appointment with his scheduler if we wanted. To be clear: to make an appointment to make an appointment. Or, if we really wanted to wait around in hope of catching the congressmen, we were welcome to wait outside in the hall. No thank you, we replied. We'd wait right here inside his office. And so folks crowded in and found a spot to sit or stand where they could.

And then, after about half an hour of folks telling their stories of economic displacement to each other, Reichert actually shows up and talks. And talks. And talks, and talks, and talks. For a guy who was sooooo busy, you sure wouldn't know it. I've got about an hour of video of Reichert talking, with a little bit of him listening thrown in. The guy's got stamina. He lasted longer than my camcorder battery.

It's not like Reichert said anything much of, but, well, at least he showed up. Which is a helluva lot more than can be said of most of his colleagues.

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Sorry, but your attempt to say these are different from the Occupy movement and their "civil dosobedience is much more orderly". Occupy is a large part of it, in coordination with other groups, and other groups' civil disobedience has been the same, with people being arrested, etc. And Occupy is using the same tactics as these other groups:

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On Tuesday, Occupy DC protesters sat outside the offices of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

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I recognize your need to paint Occupy as violent and undisciplined, as compared to more "orderly" groups, but I'm afraid you're wrong; they're all working together and all using some of the same tactics.

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“K Street is the place to be if you’re going to stop the moneybags who are corrupting our government,” said Jim Sessions, 75, a Methodist minister from Tennessee who was arrested Wednesday.

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“Getting arrested will make people think: ‘These people care enough to be arrested? This must matter,’ ” said Natalie Atwater, 20, of Austin.

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Aside from the Common Dreams article above, they're getting very little

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for much longer and with more result

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Progressive Maryland, a nonprofit organization that says it works to improve conditions for working families. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-12-06/us/us_occupy-congress_1_protests-mc
pherson-square-movement-and-other-groups?_s=PM:US Tuesday, with about 15 other activists from the Los Angeles nonprofit Good Jobs LA and an allied group from New York, she showed up around 12:30 p.m. at the Washington office of Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif., who represents Ventura County, where Miller lives
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“We’re standing in solidarity because … this is something that crosses state lines, something that affects all of us,” said Cara Noel, an activist who joined from United New York, a nonprofit that aids working-class people. . http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/06/9255645-activists-show-up
-to-retake-congress

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