Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann has given us plenty of comedic fodder over the past few years. She's established herself as one of the most extreme, far right-wing members of Congress and is a constant source of embarrassment for both her party and the nation. Now, a group of Minnesota bloggers has filed an ethics complaint against her for partisan use of taxpayer money:

ST. PAUL, MINN – Jul. 29, 2009 – Minnesota bloggers Dusty Trice, Brian Falldin, and Aaron Landry filed an ethics complaint with the House Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) requesting an investigation into whether Rep. Michele Bachmann’s office has violated House franking rules pertaining to proper e-mail usage.

The complaint points out that an e-mail sent by Representative Bachmann’s office on May 26, 2009, advocates for the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), a political organization, which is in violation of the House Franking Rules.

Aaron Landry, who first began investigating the story said, “Michele Bachmann is no stranger to NADA, they’ve been a strong donor to her congressional campaign committee.” According to campaignmoney.com, Rep. Bachmann has received approximately $13,000 from NADA since 2006. Thus, Rep. Bachmann’s ties to the organization establish a potential quid-pro-quo scenario. Read on...

The citizens of Alaska must grow more embarrassed by the day:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Another ethics complaint was filed against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday – less than a week before her resignation – alleging she failed to submit complete gift disclosure forms in a timely manner.

The complaint filed with the attorney general is the 19th ethics grievance against Palin, who responded via Twitter postings that the filings came from a "serial complainer" intent on abusing the political process.

And now an independent investigator finds Palin may have broken ethics laws by taking big bucks from her GOP buddies to pay for legal bills:

The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.

An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the "official" legal defense fund. Read on...

Continuing her bid to be the biggest political joke in U.S. history, soon-to-be ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin chose to whine about the charges on Twitter, accusing her accuser of violating ethics laws:

"In violation of Ethics Act more allegations were filed today by serial complainer; gave to press be4 we could respond; ridiculous, wasteful..." Palin wrote in the first of a string of postings on the social networking site Twitter. Read on...

As our Jon Perr notes, Palin could have raised a lot more money and gotten a lot more help from the GOP faithful had she adopted the Scooter Libby 3-step defense method.

DKos:

We've been keeping close tabs on the fired prosecutors story here at DailyKos, with a special focus on our two good friends who tried to strong-arm the long arm of the law, Sen. "Pajama Pete" Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson. As you may know, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (aka CREW) has filed ethics complaints against both alleged law-breaker lawmakers (Domenici | Wilson).

What you may not know is that the complaint against Wilson may wind up going nowhere. Paul Kiel at the indispensable TPM Muckraker explains:

[T]here's a funny thing about the ethics committee in the House. Unlike in the Senate, a complaint does not automatically trigger a preliminary investigation. For that to happen, a member of the House has to file a referral. And, because of an ongoing ethics truce between the parties, that is exceedingly rare.

I worry that this scandal is too obscure for many Americans to understand, but this is a really big deal. The Republican roughshod is almost mafia like and we just cannot let Heather Wilson slide. Please, please contact your Representative and demand that an ethics investigation be opened against Wilson.

Here is David Iglesias testifying before the Senate on the events before his firing.

This one’s been percolating for about a week now, but with Speaker Pelosi’s office weighing in yesterday, it’s a good time to review one of the Bush administration’s more embarrassing new scandals (not to be confused with the multitude of old ones).

It starts with Steven Griles, a former lobbyist who’s due to be indicted in the Abramoff scandal any minute now, who was hired to be Bush’s Deputy Secretary of the Interior. Shortly after taking office, Griles was accused of doing what he does best — arranging favors for his former clients. As ethics complaints started mounting, the Interior Department assigned an official to keep an eye on Griles, to make sure he didn’t get into too much trouble, while Interior’s inspector general looked into his activities. The official was Sue Ellen Wooldridge, then the deputy chief of staff to Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

Shortly thereafter, Wooldridge started secretly dating the guy she was supposed to be monitoring for ethical lapses. As Paul Kiel explained, that’s when things got really interesting.