Pancakes, Bed Bath & Arrest Warrants: A Muckrakers Week in Review

American Muckrakers · Weekly Dispatch

Aug 23, 2025

By David B. Wheeler · President & Co‑Founder, American Muckrakers PAC and Co-Host, MUCK YOU! podcast

If politics is a circus, this week we ran the ring. We filed complaints, dropped FOIAs, and served up satire like it was Sunday brunch. Here’s the blow‑by‑blow and a few jokes to keep us all sane.

🛟Noem’s Love Shack

We filed a FOIA request with the U.S. Coast Guard asking whether DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is living in taxpayer‑funded Coast Guard housing—and whether Cory Lewandowski is an approved occupant. If true, it’s less homeland security and more home, land’s yours?

🧾ActBlue turns into ActBlackHole

After years of silence and denial, we filed an FEC complaint over ActBlue’s secret blacklist. Picking winners and losers behind the scenes smells like an in‑kind contribution to everyone but us—and that’s not how democracy or conduits are supposed to work. Either reinstate us or explain it under oath. Now, we know ActBlue pretends they care. We beg to differ and have tried for three years to be reinstated and can’t even get a phone call back to discuss a remedy. An FEC complaint is our last resort.

🏨Boebert’s Beach Bonanza

We amended our FEC complaint after spotting over $12,000 in “travel/event” charges at a Palm Beach resort while Rep. Boebert’s own posts place her in Colorado and DC on those same dates. The “irrespective test” isn’t a pool‑towel checkout form. We’re going to get her on this one.

⚖️Habba the Pretend Prosecutor

We filed a New Jersey ethics complaint against Alina Habba. A federal judge said her interim authority expired; meanwhile she targeted Democrats and vowed to “turn New Jersey red.” The only thing red in Jersey should be the pizza sauce.

🥞Friday Fun: Satire Break

Because sometimes ridicule is the sharpest tool in the toolbox.

Why it matters

We laugh, but we also file. Every FOIA, every complaint, every cartoon drags misconduct into daylight. We don’t just fight the powerful—we mock them until the press releases write themselves.

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