Moroun has continued to fail at these things, including failing to comply with an order to tear down duty-free structures he illegally built on city property. So the judge ordered Matty Moroun to appear in court Jan. 12 to face contempt of court charges.

This apparently outraged Matty, who then sent his son Matthew, aka MM the Lesser, out to smear the judge. He charged that Edwards was being mean to his daddy because he wanted Gov. Rick Snyder to appoint his son, Prentis Edwards Jr., to a vacant district judge seat. This was clearly absurd.

Judge Edwards was ruling against Moroun when Jennifer Granholm was still governor. Nevertheless, the Morouns love the art of the Big Lie, as their multimillion-dollar campaign against the needed new bridge demonstrates. My guess is that at the very least, Matty and his DNA-carrying mouthpiece thought they would prevent the younger Edwards from getting a judgeship.

Indeed, their charge probably would have had that effect on most politicians. But not on Snyder, who last week did indeed appoint three attorneys to vacant judgeships — including the younger Edwards, who is now an assistant Wayne County prosecutor. The governor's press release praised their abilities; a spokesman said the bridge never came up. You have to admire the governor for that. The senior Edwards has a spotless reputation. If anything, appointing him might inspire the father to bend over backward to be fair to Moroun.

The question the press should ask is why other judges have been dragging their feet on evicting Matty from the portion of Detroit's Riverside Park he seized years ago, putting up phony "homeland security" signs in the process.

As blogger Joel Thurtell (joelontheroad.com) points out, "If it is right to kick the Occupy Wall Streeters out of a New York City park, it should be equally right to run Matty out of a Detroit park." He recommends a SWAT team.

Sadly, however, Thurtell is missing something. Matty Moroun is not the 99 percent who can be kicked around; he resides among the upper layers of the 1 percent.

I hope that makes everything perfectly clear.

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