Last month, Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that persons coming from COVID hot spots would have to quarantine for 14 days. Those hot spots include 27 high-risk states, which means that people who live in over half the states will need to quarantine upon arrival in DC.

Of course there are exceptions. You know there are always exceptions. The Washington Nationals baseball team, for example, is exempt. So are lawmakers who visit different parts of the country because government-related travel is deemed “essential.”

So how did the DC mayor’s office determine which states to put on their warning list? According to Bowser’s office these were areas where “the [seven-day] moving average daily new COVID-19 case rate is … 10 or more per … 100,000 persons.” And if you’re an unlucky schlub who comes to DC from such states after “non-essential” travel, here’s what you have to do, according to the order:

a. Stay at their residence or in a hotel room, leaving only for essential medical appointments or treatment or to obtain food and other essential goods when the delivery of food or other essential goods to their residence or hotel is not feasible;

b. Not invite or allow guests, other than caregivers, into their quarantined residence or hotel room; and

c. Self-monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 and seek appropriate medical advice or testing if COVID-19 symptoms arise.

But if your travel is “essential,” the DC mayor lets you off a little easier:

1. Self-monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 and to self-quarantine and seek medical advice or testing if they show symptoms of COVID-19; and

2. Limit their activities involving contact with other persons for fourteen (14) days to the purposes that exempted them from the self-quarantine requirement to the extent possible.

Now one of the states that’s on the Toxic 27 list is Georgia. And what happened recently in Georgia that made national news?

That’s right — the John Lewis funeral tour ended at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Credit: Shannon McGee/flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0.

So what about all those political elites who attended the Lewis funeral? Which would include people like Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn. In other words, Democrat bigwigs who reign in the House and the Senate.

Well, they don’t have to self-quarantine for 14 days, according to Susana Castillo, press secretary for the DC Mayor Bowser. Why not? She regurgitated the mayor’s exemption:

“Government activity is essential, and the Capitol of the United States is exempt from the Mayor’s Order.”

Yeah, but was Lewis’s funeral “essential?” According to Castillo: Yes.

DC Mayor Exempts John Lewis Funeral Attendees From City’s Quarantine Restrictions https://t.co/lcWfLzMWjk pic.twitter.com/l0viBCyrMh

— The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) August 1, 2020

But what about other funerals? You know, that involve the little people, like you or me? Aren’t they essential, too?

Average citizens can go pound sand. When asked if they would be required to quarantine, Castillo once again simply replied, “Yes.” You know how this works. If you’re a DC politician, it’s quarantine for thee, but not for me.

One man, grieving over the loss of his father, expressed his frustration over the inequity of quarantine rules:

I get it. My dad wasn’t important. So it’s ok to limit his funeral to 10 people tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/9MCAlNrRK4

— brink (@brinkofill) July 30, 2020

Whereupon a news anchor from Alabama responded:

Not at all. His father was important and should be celebrated. But he was not John Lewis.

— Wendell D. Edwards (@ABC3340Wendell) July 31, 2020

That arrogant asshole anchor rightly got shade from some really angry Twitter users, because he has since protected his tweets.

We’ve all heard the stories over the past few months — heartbreaking accounts of families who couldn’t say goodbye to their loved ones because of COVID restrictions. Or if they were able to hold a funeral they had to limit attendees to just a handful of mourners, even though it’s so important for families to share their grief with others.

I so get that. My father passed away in October, 2019, and while those two days surrounding his funeral wrenched my emotions, it meant so much to see how many people loved him. And then to witness at the cemetery the taps and the flag ceremony and the rifle volley that honored his service in World War II — I’m truly thankful to have experienced that. And I feel so badly for people who couldn’t.

But moving on from the Lewis funeral — guess what big event will be happening later this month, on August 28th? None other than the March on Washington. And it’s going to be huge: almost 100,000 people are expected to descend upon Washington, DC, to commemorate the first March on Washington in 1963.

But hold on — with 100,000 people, won’t a lot of them be coming from those Toxic 27 states? You bet.

Now DC Mayor Bowser is expecting those participants to honor that quarantine order. Right. And if you believe that’s gonna happen, let me interest you in a deal on a bridge.

Not to worry, says the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network is the lead organizer for the march:

“A distancing march, we will not have hot spots bring buses in. We’re going to be very conscious and wear face masks but we’re going to take a stand for what John Lewis stood for, the Voting Act and the George Floyd Policing Act.” 

So Rev. Al thinks he’s going to be able to keep people from hot spots from coming to the march? One-hundred thousand marchers? Yeah, good luck with that. Plus the words “conscious” and “Sharpton” don’t exactly go together, either.

But you know this march will go off, anyway. DC Mayor Bowser may issue all the phony-baloney warnings she wants, but in the end she’ll still let it happen. Just like she allowed the Democrat politicians to attend the John Lewis funeral without having to quarantine like the common folks. Restrictions be damned — it’s the narrative that counts.

And then politicos wonder why more and more people refuse to buy into their COVID Kabuki theater.

Welcome, Instapundit readers! 

Featured image: Lorie Shaull/flickr/cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0.