The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Republican Governor of Nevada, Jim Gibbons. He gets the award for the following.

WASHINGTON - A defense company that got a federal contract with help from then-Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons, now governor of Nevada, hired Gibbons' wife to do consulting work, according to a published report Friday.

Dawn Gibbons was paid about $35,000 by Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nev., in 2004, the same year her husband, who sat on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, pushed for the company to get a $4 million contract to make a helicopter radar system, the Wall Street Journal reported.

*****

The company involved in that case is eTreppid Technologies LLC of Reno, Nev., owned by Warren Trepp, a longtime Gibbons friend who contributed nearly $100,000 to Gibbons' campaign for governor. The case arose out of a civil lawsuit brought against Trepp by a one-time business partner. In the lawsuit, which involves ownership of software codes, Trepp's former partner made allegations that Gibbons used his influence to steer tens of millions of dollars in military contracts to Trepp.

*****

The contract that Dawn Gibbons got from Sierra Nevada was to conduct market surveys and demonstrations of a hand-held emergency-communication device.

Sierra Nevada got a $2 million contract in 2004 for research to develop a landing system to help pilots land in "brownout" conditions. Gibbons sought $4 million for the project but Congress signed off on $2 million.

You either have a congressman taking a bribe here, or at the very least a massive conflict of interest. Doesn't matter which, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons is today's Knucklehead of the Day.

Linked to- Amboy Times, Basil, Blue Star, Cao, Jo, Leaning Straight Up, Macbro's Place, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson, Pirate's Cove, Pursuing Holiness, Random Yak, Right Wing Nation, Right Voices, Samantha Burns, StikNstein, Third World County, Walls of the City, Woman Honor Thyself,