No, Not THAT!!!

UPDATE: This post and this post PROVE BEYOND ALL DOUBT that Maria and I spend absolutely no time coordinating our blogging efforts!  Go to her post first.

On May 27, Politico posted this:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann may be the congresswoman with nine lives. But 2014 could be the gravest threat to her political career yet.

The bomb-throwing conservative and onetime Republican presidential candidate is girding for what promises to be a ferocious reelection contest. Awaiting Bachmann is a serious Democratic opponent who has the full backing of his national party and a suburban Twin Cities electorate that six months ago nearly tossed her out of office.

The most glaring problem for Bachmann, though, may be a swirl of investigations into her campaign finances. The Federal Election Commission and the Office of Congressional Ethics are investigating whether her campaign concealed payments to an Iowa state senator who did work for her 2012 presidential bid. (A state ethics law bars senators from doing paid campaign work.)

And late last week, Minnpost.com reported that the FBI would be joining the investigation and interviewing a former Bachmann chief of staff.

And here's what Minnpost.com reported:

The FBI is investigating complaints of alleged campaign finance violations in Rep. Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign.

The FBI joins the Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Elections Commission and an Iowa state Senate ethics committee in probing whether Bachmann's presidential campaign paid an Iowa state senator from her MichelePAC, a fund that should not have been used for campaign expenses, and whether the state senator stole the email list of an Iowa home-school group from another Bachmann staffer, Barbara Hekki, prior to the Iowa caucuses in January, 2012.

They also reported (a few paragraphs later):

The entry of the FBI into the investigation raises the possibility that there were potential criminal violations. In addition to the alleged theft of the home-school list, the FBI is said to be looking into the campaign's demand that certain former employees, whose pay was withheld at the end of the campaign, sign non-disclosure agreements before receiving their compensation.

The very next day, this video was posted on youtube:


And this came from the AP early this morning:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, a conservative firebrand and a favorite of tea party Republicans, said Wednesday she will not run for another term in the U.S. House.

While in situations like this it's always good to remember the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.  We should not not automatically assume that the ethics probes or the FBI investigation or the near loss last time of her seat had anything whatsoever to do with her decision not to run this time.

She even says so in her video.

So we simply know it's true simply because she said it.  I mean when has Michelle Bachmann ever said anything untrue before?