“This is very serious," said Craig Holman, a government ethics lobbyist at liberal-leaning watchdog group Public Citizen. "It’s not Watergate, or at least not yet, but these are a series of allegations that are each serious on their own, and when you put them all together, this could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann."

Ken Boehm, chairman of the conservative-leaning National Legal and Policy Center, told Salon that we should wait to see what investigators find -- indeed, no wrongdoing has been reported so far -- though he acknowledged the escalating scrutiny could be a major headache for the congresswoman down the line.

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From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

An affidavit reviewed by the committee on Wednesday showed that former Bachmann chief of staff Andy Parrish said Bachmann approved plans to indirectly pay Sorenson $7,500 a month to work on her campaign. The alleged payments could violate an Iowa Senate ethics rule that prohibits members from accepting payments for work on political campaigns.

Parrish’s affidavit included copies of e-mails between him and other staff members discussing plans to use a company run by Bachmann’s then-national political director, Guy Short, to funnel payments to Sorenson. Sorenson has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He filed an affidavit from an attorney who claimed to have reviewed his bank account and found no payments from the Bachmann campaign, her political action committee or Short’s company, C&M Strategies.

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Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich dubbed the national debt a "burden for our children for life."

Ex-Rep. Dennis Kucinich vilified Republicans for adding, by his calculations, $4 trillion to it.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, meanwhile, predicted debt will precipitate a future of "indentured servitude to foreign lenders."

What unites these and other presidential candidates is that they themselves are in debt. Campaign debt.

It's a dubious distinction shared by Democrats and Republicans, eccentric nonagenarians and White House occupants.

Such debt isn't really hurting anyone but creditors — certainly not the nation nor its creditworthiness.

But it is a reminder that despite candidates' soaring rhetoric about fiscal responsibility, they often fail to follow their own prescription for sound budgetary management amid the relentless rush to remain competitive with political rivals during election seasons that are longer and more expensive than ever.

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From Roll Call:

About a dozen representatives and several senators are expected to attend the event in the Rayburn House Office Building at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, organizers said. Co-hosting the event is TheTeaParty.net and helping organize it is consulting firm kellenPROJECTS.

Also, a competing tea party caucus founded this Congress by South Carolina Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney was abandoned when the lawmaker realized Bachmann would be restarting her caucus after all.

The event will focus on “how to effectively educate the public on Tea Party ideals and discuss the Tea Party’s legislative activities for the year," according to Roll Call, which obtained the invite.

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“Congresswoman Bachmann knew of and approved this arrangement,” Parrish said in his affidavit. “She, like the rest of us, understood from Senator Sorenson that it did not run afoul of any Iowa Senate ethics rules. We relied on his representations in this regard.”

Ironically, when Sorenson switched his allegiance to Rep. Ron Paul, Bachmann accused Paul of improperly paying the senator. As it turns out, Paul did not pay him, but Bachmann did. Sorenson has strongly denied any wrongdoing, as has Bachmann, through her lawyer.

Bachmann has faced mounting ethics issues in the past week, though none appear fatal at the moment.

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Bachmann's former top aide, GOP operative Andy Parrish, has maintained silence in the ongoing ethics issues relating to his former boss -- until now. “The time has come to confirm that ‘Witness A’ is Andy Parrish, and he’ll be providing an affidavit with supporting material that completely supports the representations previously made by Peter Waldron,” his lawyer said.

Salon was the first to interview Waldron, another former top aide of Bachmann's in Iowa, after he went public with accusations that Bachmann failed to pay her campaign staffers, among other charges. Parrish is expected to speak about Waldron's claim that Bachmann's campaign paid Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, the campaign's Iowa chairman, in violation of the state Senate's ethics laws.

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Investigators reportedly began their work by looking into payments to staff from her presidential campaign, but the new questions involve a 2011 tour to promote her memoir, Core of Conviction. Two former staff members told the Star Tribune that they had been asked about whether they worked to promote the book while on the payroll of Bachmann's presidential campaign, something that would potentially violate federal ethics rules.

Bachmann’s campaign lawyer, William McGinley, denied any wrongdoing and said the book's publisher paid for the tour and promotional expenses. “Records show that the campaign was very careful to ensure that protocols were in place to keep the book tour and presidential campaign completely separate and distinct,” he said. “Any fair and objective review of the record will conclude that Congresswoman Bachmann and the campaign followed the FEC [Federal Election Commission] advisory opinions and acted appropriately.”

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As a result, they have become unmoored from the political incentives that typically drive law-makers' decision-making process. Public opinion no longer sways them, and that is creating a potentially insurmountable problem for the party establishment's efforts to broaden the GOP's appeal beyond angry old white people.

House Republicans may care about the GOP's national fortunes in the abstract, but too many are impervious to what the public at large wants because of the nature of the districts they represent. At the same time, a steady stream of spin from the conservative media provides insulation from the realities of American politics, and deep-pocketed outside groups punish Republicans for any deviation from right-wing orthodoxy.

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“These days Congress is all about and scoring political points rather than actually solving problems and Minnesota’s 6th District -- my home -- is losing out because of that more than anywhere. I’m not interested in celebrity, only in solutions,” Graves said in a press release. “As a businessman who has balanced budgets and created jobs, I’m running to work with both sides to find ways to balance the budget, keep our promises to seniors, create jobs and strengthen the middle class.”

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The press conference with Nienow, R, was "to discuss problems with Medicaid reimbursement rates paid to doctors in Minnesota.  Both are introducing legislation increasing accountability and transparency," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

But when reporters tried to ask about a Congressional Ethics probe into alleged campaign finance violations by Bachmann's 2012 presidential campaign, Bachmann, R-Minn., darted away, assisted by aide Deb Steiskal, who blocked reporters. You can see pictures taken by the Star Tribune here.

Bachmann has recently made similar moves to avoid questioning by CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash, who tried to ask about seemingly erroneous statements in Bachmann's CPAC speech.

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"You see what they're doing to Michele Bachmann?" Beck asked. "Michele Bachmann is under all kinds of ethics investigations now. Why do you suppose that is? She's evil? She is uber-clear on what's going on. Uber clear."

He continued that the State Department is "pushing" Somalis into Minnesota, and Bachmann tried to find out why. "She hasn't gotten any answers, and now she's under investigation," Beck said.

Watch, via Right Wing Watch:

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Of Palin, Stewart opined: "I know where Sarah Palin came from. Someone cast a spell on a YouTube comment and it came to life":

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The probe is being conducted by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which can then choose to refer the case to the House Ethics Committee.

From the Daily Beast:

Former staffers tell the Beast that investigators have allegedly asked about allegations of improper transfer of funds and under-the-table payments actions by Bachmann’s presidential campaign, specifically in relation to the campaign’s national political director, Guy Short, and Bachmann’s one-time Iowa campaign chairman, State Senator Kent Sorenson. Questions directly about Bachmann, they said, have been primarily focused on what she knew about those men’s actions and when she knew it.

“There are no allegations that the Congresswoman engaged in any wrongdoing,” said William McGinley, the lawyer for Bachmann's campaign. “We are constructively engaged with the OCE and are confident that at the end of their Review the OCE Board will conclude that Congresswoman Bachmann did not do anything inappropriate.”

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"That’s why we’re here, because we’re saying let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. Let’s not do that. Let’s love people, let’s care about people. Let’s repeal it now while we can."

Watch:

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"Now, this would be much ado about nothing, if not for the fact that trivial attacks on President Obama are obscuring serious problems in this country," O'Reilly said, also noting that "every other president in history has lived in comfort, and it looks like President Bush the younger had a bigger White House budget than Barack Obama does."

"This is a trivial pursuit, and Michelle Bachmann made a mistake pursuing it," he added.

Bachmann had slammed Obama last week in her CPAC speech for his presidential "perks" that waste taxpayer money, specifically citing the Secret Service, the White House dog-walker, and movie nights.

Watch:

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But it won't come as much of a shock to any Bachmannphile to learn that some of the claims she made in the speech are the opposite of true. It turns out they're mostly based on a self-published book with few citations written by a longtime Republican lobbyist whom the New York Times once compared to Darth Vader.

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After a rough year featuring an aborted presidential run and a too-close-for-comfort congressional race, Bachmann's star may have dimmed on Capitol Hill, but not here, where there was standing room only in a space with seating for over 250. TheTeaParty.Net's Todd Cefaratti's introduction was so effusive that Bachmann joked, "I think that Todd has just nominated me for sainthood, right after the pope!"

But Bachmann was here for another reason than to soak up the praise: She had the honor of handing out the "Blogger of the Year" award, sponsored by a consortium of Tea Party groups and conservative media outlets. "Bloggers are where it's at!" she said.

"Through the miracle of bloggers, we're telling the story" of how conservative values are winning out over liberals, she declared.

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And then you’d realize that every single one of them either lost their job or abandoned being a voice of the movement.

The 2012 election was devastating for the outspoken leaders in Congress. Allen West lost after a protracted battle, Joe Walsh was trounced by rising star Tammy Duckworth, and Ron Paul retired. Other, lesser-known members like Roscoe Barlett also lost. The two House Tea Party Caucus members who ran for the Senate last year both lost -- Reps. Denny Rehberg in Montana and Todd Akin in Missouri.

Meanwhile Jim DeMint, the most prominent Tea Party leader in the Senate, who funded primary challenges against more moderate Republicans, left the Senate a month after the election to head the Heritage Foundation.

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But Bachmann, being Bachmann, couldn’t stay quiet forever -- or even very long. And yesterday, she participated in a “newsmaker interview” at Patrick Henry College, a conservative evangelical school in Virginia (the man who introduced her said he wished the Tea Party movement had been “a little more conservative”). She addressed everything from her favorite contemporary singer (Beyoncé) to gay marriage (bad) to her mistakes (none).

When asked about the “inevitability” of gay marriage, Bachmann stood up from her chair to say that heterosexual marriage is “immutable" and “the basis of our society -- between men and women." "I won't be deviating,” she said, explaining that no matter what humans think, God created marriage and that is unquestionable.

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