You better watch out, you better not cry
You better not pout, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is comin’ to town, gather all
He’s making a list and checking it twice
He’s gonna find out who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
He sees you when you’re sleepin’
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
You better watch out, you better not cry
You better not pout, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
With little tin horns and little toy drums
Rooty toot toots and rummy tum tums
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
And curly head dolls that toddle and coo
Elephants, boats, and kiddie cars too
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
The kids in girls and boy land will have a jubilee
They’re gonna build a Toyland town all around the Christmas tree
You better watch out, you better not cry
You better not pout, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
He sees you when you’re sleepin’
And he knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is comin’ to town
You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is comin’
You mean, the big fat man with the long white beard
He’s comin’ to town

The Naughty and Nice list on Christmas Eve is a Food Safety News tradition. This year, we are including all Food Safety News subscribers on the Nice list. Whether you’ve been there for years or just signed up last week, please know Food Safety News values your engagement.

Our Naughty list this year includes those responsible for doing the most egregious harm to food safety in the United States. The Naughty list is led by at least four U.S. Senators: Mitch McConnell, R-KY, Chuck Schumer, D-NY, Pat Roberts, R-KS, and Deborah Stabenow, D-MI. McConnell and Schumer are the Senate leaders, and Roberts and Stabenow run the Senate Agriculture Committee.

The four share responsibility for the Senate’s failure in 2018 to confirm the nomination of Dr. Mindry Brashears as Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Her May 4th appointment did not get a hearing from the Roberts-Stabenow-run Ag Committee until Nov. 28. And while she got a unanimous pass out of the committee on Dec. 5, but McConnell and Schumer had no time for the nation’s top food safety job for a floor vote to confirm the nomination.

The country has now gone for more than 5 years without an Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate as required by law. The post is vacant. It’s duties left to top bureaucrats. The job was created to give food safety some political clout in a department dominated by its marketing and sales functions.

As our only runner-up for this year’s Naughty list is Dt. Brenda Fitzgerald, who quit last January after a short stint as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. Fitzgerald, who was Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Health from 2011 to 2017, got caught with financial holdings that just did not right for a CDC Director. Her trading shares in Japan Tobacco forced her exit from the organization known for fighting tobacco use.

Dr. Robert R. Redfield then was named as the 18th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.