You’ve been served, Ben Bernanke

Ron Paul supporters, goldbugs and people wearing JFK T-shirts amassed on the lawn between Liberty Memorial and Union Station to protest the Federal Reserve Bank on Saturday.

End the Fed rallies took place in Kansas City and other cities where the Fed operates banks. The Kansas City protesters brought signs blasting various aspects of the U.S. financial system, including the government’s $54 trillion deficit.

Working without the benefit of the media apparatus that promoted the tea-bag parties, the protesters hoped to muster support for Paul-sponsored legislation to audit and dismantle the Federal Reserve System. Congress created the system in 1913, after two earlier central banks lost their charters. “The first two were abolished because of corruption issues,” Catherine Bleish, executive director of the Liberty Restoration Project, said on Saturday.

The JFK shirts recognized an executive order relating to the issuance of silver certificates the 35th president signed in 1963. The timing of the order has prompted conspiracy theorists to wonder if bankers afraid of losing their grip on power supplied arms to the second gunman on the grassy knoll.