DC is known for a municipal government considerably to the left of Ho Chi Minh. Mayor Muriel Bowser is no exception and seems to be having a field day slaking the hard-left thirst for state coercion and government overkill.

Bowser wants 90 days in jail and a $5000 fine for anybody in DC who leaves their home aside from essential duties and needs. The penalties are bat guano crazy and many are saying so.

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The New York Post reports on the issue: “This is insane. Criminal penalties?” tweeted Mercedes Schlapp, former Trump White House director of strategic communications and an aide with his re-election campaign. Schlapp is married to American Conservative chief Matt Schlapp.

Even the Left is on board with the criticism. Monica Hopkins, executive director of the DC ACLU said, “When we saw this order, we thought, ‘You want to send them where? People being arrested for that causes all sorts of problems that are antithetical to the goals of lessening the virus… What we would hope for is voluntary compliance with the stay-at-home order and discretion on the part of officers to break those sort of things up and send people home.”

When Mercedes Schlapp and the ACLU agree on something it is getting close to an across-the-board consensus. Not to mention that five DC jail inmates have tested positive for the coronavirus.

True, Bowser has only threatened this and it may be an example of the old political ploy of showing someone the cliff. You don’t throw them over the cliff. Just show it to them. That usually does the trick.

But what if someone inadvertently calls her bluff? What happens when some youngish mom is walking her dog and an overzealous police officer throws her in the back of a DC squad car pending a trip to the big house?

And, playing by DC rules, what if that woman is an Undersecretary somewhere, married to a high-level Hill staffer whose Dad is former ambassador? You think the outcry is loud now, before it may transpire? Just wait until that happens.