While endless bad news cycles can make it seem like every politician deserves coal this Christmas, it’s important to remember that a few people have done praiseworthy work. Here’s a list of this year’s best-behaved who made their way onto Santa’s nice list.
1. IRS Whistleblowers
In the face of silencing and smears, IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler confirmed that Hunter Biden received special treatment by the Department of Justice so as not to hurt Joe Biden’s election chances.
Even without access to the FD-1023 detailing Joe’s alleged involvement in a pay-to-play scandal, the whistleblowers also uncovered evidence indicating the Biden family business hinged on the patriarch’s vice-presidential position and lined the family’s pockets.
Without the whistleblowers’ courageous testimony, U.S. Attorney-turned-Special Counsel David Weiss would likely feel no pressure to bring charges against the younger Biden, and Republicans would have less fodder for their mounting impeachment case against the president.
2. House Republicans
While Senate Republicans were indefensibly silent about the Biden family influence-peddling scheme, the House Judiciary, Oversight, and Ways and Means Committees uncovered bank records, threatened FBI Director Christopher Wray with contempt for his agency’s lack of cooperation, hosted committee hearings, and recorded testimony from several whistleblowers and Biden business associates that contributes to the case against Joe Biden.
The House GOP may have hit a few bumps in the speaker road and are much slower on impeachment than anticipated considering the insurmountable evidence of corruption, but they deserve at least a little praise for getting this far and keeping the focus on Joe instead of his wayward son.
3. Sen. Tommy Tuberville
Sen. Tommy Tuberville was the lone Republican in the upper chamber who used his objection power to punish the Department of Defense for advancing the Biden administration’s abortion activism.
Even when he sustained attacks from Democrats, corporate media, former intel officials, former defense secretaries, and even Senate GOP leadership for impairing “military readiness,” Tuberville stood his ground for the majority of Americans who say they oppose taxpayer-funded abortion.
It was Senate Republicans’ unwillingness to combat the Pentagon’s abortion extremism and their willingness to partner with Democrats to change Senate rules that led Tuberville, after months of singlehandedly fending off the radical abortion policy, to end most of his holds.
4. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
This judicial body has issued several rulings this year that help reign in America’s out-of-control federal government. In August, the Fifth Circuit upheld limitations on a dangerous multi-drug abortion pill regimen responsible for more than half of the nation’s abortions and further determined that the Food and Drug Administration previously “failed to address major safety concerns when it loosened standards for the drugs’ use.” The U.S. Supreme Court has since decided to take up the case.
Meanwhile, the Fifth Circuit also affirmed a district court ruling barring the Biden administration from colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans’ free speech online. After its initial ruling, the court’s injunction prohibiting this censorship apparatus was later expanded to include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security often referred to as the “nerve center” of the federal government’s censorship-industrial complex. While the Supreme Court agreed in October to hear the case, it temporarily lifted the lower court’s ban, effectively allowing the Biden regime’s censorious partnership with social media companies to continue.
5. Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson should make Santa’s nice list every year for being “everything the corrupt corporate media hate” and saying what no one else will. He solidified his spot this year by consistently doing what our corporate media repeatedly fail to do: ask tough questions.
Early in the year, Carlson aired Jan. 6 tapes and raised alarm bells about Democrats’ culpability in Capitol security failures. Not even his ousting from Fox News stopped Carlson from interviewing the ex-chief of the Capitol police, asking Biden family associates about the first family’s corruption, criticizing corrupt intelligence agencies and the D.C. uniparty, and calling out Big Tech and other internet censorship.
The most influential public figure in the U.S. didn’t stop there. He launched a new show on X, formerly known as Twitter, and recently announced a new network that promises to tell “the truth about the things that matter.”
6. Clarence Thomas
This year, the Supreme Court’s most senior justice demonstrated once again why he’s one of the best originalists to grace the nation’s highest judicial body. In addition to upholding Americans’ religious freedoms, Thomas also signed onto the majority opinion striking down universities’ racist affirmative-action programs.
In his concurring opinion, Thomas offered “an originalist defense of the colorblind Constitution,” and further criticized leftist Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — who sought to uphold colleges’ discriminatory acceptance policies — for her “race-infused world view,” which he rightly noted “falls flat at each step.”
Read more of Thomas’ straight-fire quotes from his Students for Fair Admissions opinion here.
7. Ken Paxton
Being unfairly impeached by Democrats and even a feckless Republican Party might deter some elected officials, but not Ken Paxton. Throughout the past year, the Texas attorney general has been at the forefront of several important lawsuits aimed at bringing accountability to some of America’s worst actors.
After launching an investigation into whether pharmaceutical giants misled the public about the efficacy of the Covid shot, Paxton announced last month that his office is suing Pfizer for employing “highly misleading” language when pushing people to receive its Covid jab “despite [the shot’s] failure to prevent infection or transmission.” More recently, Paxton joined The Federalist and The Daily Wire in filing a lawsuit against the State Department for the latter’s funding of tools used to censor Americans who question their government.
8. Florida Republicans
After winning major electoral victories in the 2022 midterms, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature wasted no time in making the state the reddest in the nation.
In one legislative session, the state approved laws protecting children from leftist indoctrination and perversion, banning taxpayer-funded “DEI” in universities, cracking down on crime, authorizing constitutional carry, defending unborn babies, restricting Chinese Communist Party land grabs, protecting women’s spaces, cracking down on illegal immigration, applying the death penalty to child rapists, and banning Covid tyranny, Central Bank Digital Currency, and so-called “ESG” standards. Moreover, DeSantis fired a soft-on-crime Democrat prosecutor backed by leftist billionaire George Soros, the second he’s removed since taking office.
In essence, DeSantis and Florida Republicans have created a governing blueprint that all “red” states should be adopting if they wish to retain what’s left of America’s constitutional republic.
9. Riley Gaines
After being forced to compete against Lia Thomas, a man pretending to be a woman, 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer Riley Gaines decided enough was enough. Throughout the past year, Gaines has become a vocal spokeswoman for young girls and women across the country whose athletic careers are being taken away by trans-identifying men.
Despite enduring threats and physical violence from rabid, pro-transgender leftists, Gaines has continued to speak out against the injustices of men competing in women’s sports and the harm such circumstances can bring to female athletes.
10. Election-Integrity Activists
Since Democrats sabotaged the 2020 election with “Zuckbucks” and unlawful election guidance, election-integrity activists have been working overtime to thwart the left’s hijacking of America’s election systems. Grassroots activists involved with groups such as the Election Integrity Network, Election Transparency Initiative, and so many others have pushed Republican-controlled states to advance legislation aimed at bringing security and transparency to the electoral process.
Meanwhile, legal groups such as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, Public Interest Legal Foundation, and the Republican National Committee’s election-integrity division have worked to confront Democrat lawyers and the Justice Department’s legal assault on these laws.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx. Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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