YOU KNOW HOW IN MY COUSIN VINNY HE SAYS “EVERYTHING THAT GUY JUST SAID IS BULLSHIT?” THAT’S BASICALLY WHAT THE JUDGE DID HERE: Federal Judge Blasts Whitmer’s Lockdown Defense.
Despite the governor’s consistent claim that she was making science-driven decisions, her team of lawyers had no answer for the federal judge when pressed for the data supporting specific provisions of some executive orders.
Maloney emphasized that the bar he faced to uphold Whitmer’s executive orders was extremely low but not zero. He said also that the bar was very high for him to grant the gym owners’ request to let them reopen.
“Plaintiffs [gym businesses] must show that there is no conceivable set of facts from which a rational relation can be drawn,” the judge stated.
“Plaintiffs only argue … the continued closure of gyms is arbitrary and unreasonable because gyms are basically the only category of businesses that remain closed in Michigan, and because the State has not put forward any scientific data that supports keeping gyms closed while opening other closely similar activities and businesses, such as swimming pools, restaurants and bars, and ‘personal touch’ services like salons,” the judge wrote.
And then, the judge stated how little evidence Whitmer’s team would have to produce to win the lawsuit.
“Rather, this Court must uphold the Governor’s Executive Orders as long as they are supported by some relation to the public health.”
Maloney then emphasized how far short Whitmer’s lawyers fell of even that low standard.
“Unfortunately, on the record before it, the Court has not been presented with any evidence that shows a rational relation between the continued closure of indoor gyms and the preservation of public health,” he wrote. “While the standard is extremely deferential here—if the Court can conceive of any set of facts that would support the Orders, it must uphold them and deny the injunction—the Orders must still connect the challenged prohibition with some fact or facts.”
The judge’s rebuke also described how, in oral arguments, the governor’s lawyers struggled to produce any data or science supporting her position.
Bullshit is not science.