It must be tough being a Republican politician these days, constantly trying to put lipstick on a pig.

The latest example is Pete Ricketts and Jim Pillen touting the immigration detention center in McCook. They even gave it a cute name… The Cornhusker Clink.

Wasn’t Clink the name of the Commandant of Stalag 13 in Hogan’s Heroes? (An obscure ref-erence for the Boomer readers. Although I doubt this detention center will be as pleasant or as comical as Stalag 13, but I digress.)

After it was announced that the prison in McCook was being repurposed to hold three hundred immigrants before sending them off to who knows where, Senator Ricketts stated that this detention center would be a boom for the McCook economy.

Nice lipstick sir, but how is rounding up hundreds of farm workers, or having immigrants live in fear so they don’t show up for work, good for the rural Nebraska economy? Weren’t the prison workers already employed there good for the McCook economy?

Speaking about Nebraska’s economy, last quarter, Nebraska’s GDP was down 6.1%. That decline was attributed primarily to the Ag industry, which has been hit hard by the immigra-tion and trade policies of the Trump administration.

Governor Pillen mentioned the recent arrest of an MS-13 gang member who was appre-hended during a routine traffic stop on I-80. That arrest was made with good old-fashioned police work. It was not made by ICE agents storming into a Home Depot parking lot, round-ing up day laborers, or, closer to home, the meat packers at Glen Valley who are trying to feed their families.

Of course, I want MS-13 gang members and violent criminals off the street as much as the next guy, but ICE isn’t just rounding up the bad guys. Immigrants who are here legally, and even U.S. citizens, are being deported.

The Trump administration plans to have 41,000 detention beds in place to hold these men, women, and, in some cases, children before shipping them out. After those 41,000 are shipped out, I have no doubt ICE will just keep rounding up some more.

Governor Pillen says that he cares about the children. What about the children who are separated from their parents who are being shipped out? Doesn’t he care about those chil-dren? Or is he only concerned with white Christian kids?

Speaking of being Christian, while these politicians like to tout their Christian values, I fail to see anything Christ-like in these immigration policies.

The Trump administration wants the Smithsonian to downplay the horrors of slavery and focus on the more positive aspects of it. After all, slavery was good for the South’s economy. Just like this detention center will be good for McCook’s.

The detention center isn’t the only lipstick these Republican politicians have to apply. Many red state governors are sending National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to supposedly fight crime. But is that the real reason? Why not just hire more police? Hire more judges?

If Trump is so concerned about crime, why didn’t he send the National Guard into D.C on January 6th? Why did he release those violent offenders from prison and onto the streets of D.C.? Is he really fighting crime or turning America into a police state?

Texas has started a redistricting war to try to get more Republicans in Congress, while Trump is trying to cast doubt on elections by putting out an executive order to ban mail-in voting.

If Texas is successful, but a Democrat still wins one of those seats, he’ll claim that the Dem-ocrats cheated and maybe send in the National Guard to overturn the results.

There was a time when I would have thought that scenario was far-fetched. We don’t live in those times anymore.

I seriously doubt that deep down, Ricketts and Pillen are bad guys or are unaware of history. They are just men who so desperately want to hold on to power that they are afraid to speak out for decency and fairness at the risk of upsetting our wannabe king.

So, they play the game, and they go along to get along. They ignore what is happening in front of their very eyes because they would rather follow Trump’s policies than be an actual leader themselves.

Maybe one day the fever will break, and they can become actual Republicans again. Republi-cans like Lincoln, Reagan, Eisenhower, Bush, and others who fought tyranny and lived by the words on the Statue of Liberty.

Until that day arrives, they’ll keep putting lipstick on a pig.

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.

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