Orders from Empress O

I rarely watch Oprah. But clever Oprah knows that a lot of people don't watch her show during the afternoon because who has time to watch her show in the afternoon? She now re-broadcasts her show at 9pm.

Last night's show gave me nightmares.

Oprah did a show called "Internet Predators: How Bad Is It?" One of her guests was a cop who wrote a computer tracking program to find child pornography. These cops have to watch gut wrenching videos of children -- infants & toddlers -- getting raped. Oprah showed a pedophile manual detailing how to molest little girls based on age, the youngest group being 0-4 years.

She interviewed a cop who has to make a judgment call every day on which pedophile to arrest and investigate. He said that it made him sick that every piece of paper, every case left on his desk, meant that another child would be raped that day.

This cop she interviewed said that with the internet, the pervs have a major advantage. They're able to interact with each other and normalize their deviant behavior. They're proliferating exponentially and the kids are getting younger and the activity more and more violent. Imagine how many of these criminals could be caught, how many children could be rescued, if we had the funding for law enforcement. Look, I know this is a major downer, but you'll be glad to know that Empress O has a battleplan.

Here is where you come in.

Help pass Senate Bill 1738 -- The Protect Our Children Act. The act gives more funding to law enforcement and establishes a national task force to find the perpetrators. It only takes a few moments. You go to www.senate.gov and from there you can find your senators' home pages and email them directly. Empress O has even made it easy with a form letter you can email if you don't feel like you can write something on your own.

There is a little bit of politicking here because this bill is co-sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden (D), and has been endorsed by both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton. The republicans have a similar bill (S. 3344) co-authored by Sen. McCain that has also been stalled. McCain's bill is actually a complimentary bill to 1738.

Who cares who gets credit? At this point, I don't care who gets bragging rights. I only care that the bill passes. Look, I don't claim to know or understand these bills and their differences.

But I do know that as a mother, my stomach clenches every time I think about the fact that there are these monsters amongst us. I think about all those other children enduring this abuse. I just want to scream.

Obama and McCain sure make a lot of talk about reaching across the aisle. How about some action on this?

Pass. The. Bill.
Make. It. Law.

(I hate writing like that but sometimes jarring punctuation is the only way to make a point.)