Dear Senator Ricketts, Senator Fischer, Governor Pillen, Representatives Bacon, Flood, and Smith, plus every Republican candidate reading this, have you hit rock bottom yet?  Are you sick and tired of being an enabler to this administration?  

Are you so co-dependent to our president that you can continue to make excuses for him and by extension all your fellow Republicans about what they’re doing to this country?  

Or are you just as drunk with power as Trump, Vance, Miller, Noem, Patel and the rest of them. Are you exactly like them?  

What President Trump is doing to this country has gone on long enough.  We are no longer arguing about abortion, and taxes. Or even arguing about gun control and immigration.  We are arguing about basic human decency. We are seeing our government murdering peaceful Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.  

It’s time for an intervention.  What’s going on in Minneapolis and now starting to happen in Maine has got to stop before it goes any further. 

Senator Ricketts I know you are proud of your Catholic faith.  Although I am no longer a practicing Catholic, I try to live by the values I learned during my ten years of parochial school.  

Pope Leo has been very critical of the Trump administration’s mistreatment of the immigrant community.  I take what Pope Leo is saying to heart.  

So I ask you Senator Ricketts and any Republican Catholic readers of this column…

Are you more of a Catholic or more of a Republican? Where do your loyalties lie? 

Governor Pillen, do you really believe in the family values you talk about, or is that just something you say to get elected?  Do you really care about the child whose mother was gunned down in the Minneapolis street or the children being separated from their parents? Are you concerned about the trauma a young immigrant child is dealing with when they are afraid to go to school, or worried they might be abducted if they go to play outside?  What about those children? Do they count? 

While I’m on the subject of children, I really would like to believe the government’s story about the five year old that made the headlines last week.  Some say the ICE agents used the kid as bait.  DHS said they took care of the child when his father abandoned him to escape deportation.  

The story the government tells is a very believable one.  But the ICE agents have shown such cruelty, and the government has lied about so many things, it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.  

And Representative Flood, you have made your money working in the media.  You own News Channel Nebraska.  How do you feel when you defend the man who attacks the press with lawsuits and threats when there are stories he doesn’t like?  Do you feel your outlets are safe because you are a part of his team?  If these armed ICE agents start arresting or murdering reporters, will you continue to remain silent?  Do you think what is happening in Minneapolis is “Fake News?”

Throughout my career I have had interactions with all of you except Congressman Smith.  I have agreed and disagreed with many of your positions on issues. But whether we agreed or not, I believed you all to be decent human beings. Was I wrong to believe that?  

Because decent human beings can no longer stay silent.  Decent human beings can no longer turn a blind eye to what is going on.  Decent human beings learn from history and don’t repeat the atrocities.  

Dear Sirs and Madam, your silence is your legacy.  History will not look kindly on you enabling this bad behavior.  Were the tax cuts worth the disruption in our streets?  Are the short-term gains in our 401 K’s still going to be there when our trading partners turn to China? 

I know it can’t be easy for you in Washington these days.  But we didn’t become the leader of the free world because it was easy.  

You can’t dismiss the people freezing in the streets of Minneapolis as just a bunch of liberals or paid agitators.  The paid agitators are the ones with the guns who prevent aid coming to a person they’ve shot. The paid agitators laugh about their terrorizing tactics like it’s a video game. Liberals are American citizens too and are not the enemy.  

Republican and Democratic administrations have been peacefully deporting dangerous illegal immigrants for decades.  Can we go back to those simpler times? 

In closing, I hope you’ll take this letter to heart.  Your silence is costing people’s life’s.  Stop being an enabler.  Stop your co-dependency.  Stop this madness.

Sincerely, 

Countless Nebraska voters.

Tom Becka is a long time Nebraska broadcaster who for over 30 years has been covering Omaha and Midwest issues on both radio and TV. He has been a guest on numerous national cable and news shows, filled in for nationally syndicated talk radio programs and Talkers Magazine has recognized him as one of the Top 100 talk show hosts in the country 10 times. Never afraid to ruffle some feathers, his ‘Becka’s Beat’ commentaries can be found online on Youtube and other digital platforms.