The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Congressman Kendrick Meek. He gets the award for the following.

(AP) MIAMI A South Florida congressman's mother was among the consultants and lobbyists a Boston developer paid to support a biotech project that has so far only cleared a lot in an impoverished neighborhood.

As part of their ongoing series of investigative reports, our news partners at the Miami Herald report four years ago, Dennis Stackhouse proposed building a $250 million biopharmaceutical park in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood.

As the project stalled, Stackhouse diverted more than half a million dollars from a Miami-Dade County poverty agency through double billing and dubious expenses. The Miami Herald also reports Stackhouse spent hundreds of thousands more on political insiders. Among them was former U.S. Representative Carrie Meek, who received at least $40,000, a leased luxury sport utility vehicle and a 2,600-square-foot rent-free office for her foundation.

Congressional records show that she was paid while her son, who now holds her seat in Congress, sought millions of federal dollars for the project.

U.S. Representative Kendrick Meek has said there was no connection between his efforts to fund the project and his mother's involvement with Stackhouse.

Carrie Meek said she was paid as a consultant for the project, and that she never lobbied her son on Stackhouse's behalf. Stackhouse also said Meek was not involved in her son's federal funding requests.

"I briefly served as a paid consultant for Dennis Stackhouse, advising him on community needs and issues, community-based groups and problems," Meek said.

The SUV was part of an "in-kind contribution" to her Carrie Meek Foundation, she said. Records obtained by the newspaper show Stackhouse made some of the vehicle payments with money from a $3 million interest-free county loan for the biotech park.

Taxpayer money being used to help the mother of a politician. Even if you believe the Congressman's denials, Meek has a conflict of interests. My own view- Just another shady Florida politician, helping himself and his family members. Either way it is good enough to make Congressman Kendrick Meek today's Knucklehead of the Day.

BTW- The Congressman is playing another tune. According to today's Miami Herald, Meek is urging an end to funding the troubled biotech park. Too little too late.

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