You’ve seen “White Women for Kamala” and “White Dudes for Harris” — but don’t expect a booster group called “Parents for Kamala and Tim.”

Kamala Harris is squarely opposed to parents’ right to control what young children are taught about gender, sex and sexuality in school.

And on Tuesday, she chose as her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz,  a former schoolteacher and teachers union member who shares her extreme anti-parent views.

Harris and Walz are out of line with what most Americans think — and not just Republicans.

A majority of Hispanic Democrats and black Democrats also want to keep gender ideology out of elementary school classrooms, according to Pew Research and YouGov polls.

Last month, Harris promised the American Federation of Teachers’ national convention that as president she’d oppose the wave of state laws that bar preschool and elementary school teachers from indoctrinating children about sexual orientation and gender choices.

She’s also vociferously fought “book ban” laws, suggesting she’s OK with giving young children reading material that encourages them to question their own gender identity.

“We want to ban assault weapons. They want to ban books,” she railed to AFT members.

At issue are books for the youngest readers — books like “I Am Jazz” that tell little girls they can be boys, and little boys they can be girls. 

Jazz “had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body,” the picture book aimed at 4- to 8-year-olds reads. ”She was transgender.”

Parental rights and the innocence of young children are at stake in this election, warns Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project, which has launched an $18 million anti-Harris ad campaign across seven swing states. 

Schilling calls Harris “an extremist.”

All people, regardless of their sexual orientation, deserve respect.

But parents need the final say on what their children are taught.

Harris has a history of bashing lawmakers who side with parents. At a June 23, 2023 Pride Rally, she called them “extremists.”

Who’s extreme here? 

The AFT has attacked a Henrico County, Va., parent for questioning the appropriateness of “I’m a Gay Wizard,” a book for middle schoolers that depicts two boy characters having oral sex.

On June 18, Harris posted a picture of herself on social media hugging a tall man in drag, dressed in a metallic bikini and stilettos, with the message, “Our LGBTQ+ children should not fear who they are.” 

Of course they shouldn’t. All children deserve respect.

But this battle isn’t about inclusion — inclusion is a good thing. It’s about indoctrination. 

An AFT report published in 2023 asserts, “Books that normalize sexual identity confusion can help young people realize that they are not alone in their struggle.”

The report goes on to say that “the lack of candid conversations in families” about “nonheterosexual identity development” must be offset by teachers in the classroom.

Sorry, most parents don’t want the AFT — or local school authorities — replacing the family in this way. Kamala Harris apparently does.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/06/opinion/kamala-harris-tim-walz-side-with-teachers-unions-over-parents/

QUESTION: IS LGBTQ+ "PROPAGANDA" IN SCHOOLS A WAY TO BYPASS LAWS IN REGARD TO CHILD EXPLOITATION/ABUSE?...

Child Exploitation

The exploitation of children has been facilitated and enhanced by the availability of the internet. 

Offences targeting those who exploit children via services such as the internet, telephone and the post are contained in Commonwealth legislation. There are a number of serious offences involving use of these telecommunications services including; an adult engaging in sexual activity with a child under 16, an adult procuring and grooming a child under 16 for sexual activity, and a person transmitting, accessing and soliciting child abuse or child pornography material of a child under 18 years.

Offences are also committed by Australians against children who are living overseas. This can be in circumstances where the offender travels overseas to engage in sexual activity or where the offences occur over the internet through sexual acts online, The transmission of material or where children are procured and groomed.

A large proportion of this work involves victims, particularly child victims. Prosecutors in this area work closely with investigators and our Witness Assistance Service to ensure that victims are treated with dignity, courtesy and respect. The CDPP Victims of Crime Policy sets out an important framework for engaging with victims of crime and their families, where appropriate.

Telecommunications

The offences in the Criminal Code (Cth) include sexual activity which occurs remotely using technology such as live web-cam and peer-to-peer networks and by causing a child to engage in sexual activity with another person. Telecommunications based child exploitation offences also cover the range of activities a person can engage in when using the internet, mobile phones and other applications to deal with child pornography and child abuse material. These activities include viewing, copying, downloading, sending, exchanging, soliciting and making material available to others.

Grooming and procuring

Grooming and procuring offences are targeted at offenders who use the anonymity of the internet to win the trust of a child as a first step to future sexual abuse or physical harm of the child and to allow law enforcement to intervene before a child is actually assaulted.

Increasing sophistication

Offences are increasingly becoming more sophisticated through the use of networks to distribute material, encryption and online access. Cases can involve hundreds of thousands of depraved and disturbing images of children and the scale and seriousness of this industry poses challenges for investigation and prosecution. 

Dealing with such material requires investigators, prosecutors and courts to deal with chat logs, images, videos and written material of a disturbing nature involving exploitation and harm to children.

Prosecuting child exploitation

The vulnerable witness protections available in the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) exist to help to ensure that vulnerable witnesses including child victims are able to give their best evidence. Prosecuting these offences often involves complex technical and evidentiary issues. We work closely with the Australian Federal Police, Australian Border Force and State and Territory Police Forces Where offences against State and Territory criminal law are closely associated with the offending CDPP there are arrangements whereby CDPP also prosecutes these offences. Where offences apply to juvenile offenders, special considerations apply to decisions to prosecute charges against persons aged under 18.

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse consulted with CDPP and other offices of Public Prosecutions regarding decision making processes for child sex matters. CDPP reviewed guidelines into how certain critical decisions should be made. (Practice Group Instruction HEBP-07) Our policies regarding victims of crime and prosecutions of these offences have also been considered in light of the Royal Commission’s recommendations.

Child sex offences outside Australia

Division 272 of the Criminal Code focuses on child sex offences committed outside Australia by Australian citizens and permanent residents, ranging from possessing child pornography and child abuse material, to engaging in sexual activity with children overseas. Division 474 offences may also apply where the technology is used to enable the offence to occur remotely.

It is also an offence to encourage or benefit from these types of offences or to do an act preparing or planning to commit a sex offence against a child overseas. It is an offence for certain offenders with reporting obligations under child protection offender registers to travel overseas without permission.

Main offences

s 272.8 and s 272.9 Criminal Code Sexual intercourse/ sexual activity with child outside Australia

s 474.25A Criminal Code Using carriage service for sexual activity with a person under 16 years of age

s.474.19(1) Criminal Code—use carriage service for child pornography material (material regarding child under 18 years of age)

s.474.26(1) Criminal Code—use carriage service to procure person under 16 years of age

s.474.27A(1) Criminal Code—use carriage service to transmit indecent communication to person under 16 years of age

s.233BAB(5) Customs Act 1901—importation of tier 2 goods.

Penalties

High maximum penalties for some offences reflect the community’s abhorrence of the exploitation of children. Maximum penalties range from 25 years’ imprisonment for Persistent sexual abuse of a child outside Australia - s. 272.11; 15 years’ imprisonment for Accessing child pornography material of a person aged under 18, to 7 years’ imprisonment for using a carriage service to transmit indecent communication to a person under 16 years of age.

There are higher maximum penalties for aggravated offences, such as where the offending conduct takes place on three or more occasions and involves two or more people, or where the sexual activity involves a child with a mental impairment or a child who is under the care, supervision or authority of the defendant.

DPP (Cth) v Beattie [2017] NSWCCA 301

R v De Leeuw [2015] NSWCCA 183

R v Leask [2013] WASCA 243

DPP (Cth) v D’Alessandro [2010] VSCA 60

https://www.cdpp.gov.au/crimes-we-prosecute/child-exploitation

No, Tim Walz is not a Manchurian Candidate
Freak-out over Kamala's running mate says more about the state of US politics than his middle-of-the-road positions on China

If you enter the fevered corners of the info-verse, you might hear that Tim Walz is a Manchurian Candidate. The governor of Minnesota, just selected by presidential candidate Kamala Harris to serve as her running mate, does indeed have a longstanding interest in China.

After graduating from college in Nebraska (where, among other things, he took classes in East Asian Studies), Walz spent the 1989-90 school year teaching English and American history in Foshan, Guangdong Province as part of Harvard’s WorldTeach program. The Chinese “are such kind, generous, capable people,” the 26-year old told a reporter after returning home. “They just gave and gave and gave to me. Going there was one of the best things I have ever done.”

Walz and his wife Gwen later honeymooned in China. And they launched a company, Educational Travel Adventures, that led student trips to Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere in the PRC.

For some, this story might sound promising – a politician who actually knows something about the world’s second most powerful country. For others, though, it sounds suspicious. Maybe even downright scary.

Fox News proclaimed that Walz has a “bizarre infatuation” with China. The New York Post declared that the VP candidate “has fawned over Communist China.” Richard Grenell, director of national intelligence under former President Donald Trump, said on X that “no one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz.” Rogan O’Handley, a conservative influencer, called Harris’ Democratic Party running mate “a CCP puppet.”

What’s the evidence?

China hawks seem most exercised about a brief clip from a longer interview in 2016 with an agribusiness news outlet. Walz, then a member of Congress from a rural district in southern Minnesota, discusses legislation before the agriculture committee and then, more than six minutes into the conversation, his work on the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China. He tells the reporter that he doesn’t believe the U.S. must have an “adversarial” relationship with its then-leading trade partner. But he also goes on to challenge China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the South China Sea — a statement excised from the clip shared by many on social media.

In fact, Walz has been openly critical of China’s human rights record, as well as its brutal authoritarianism. In 2009, while still in Congress, he co-sponsored a resolution blasting the PRC for arresting and detaining Liu Xiaobo, the pro-democracy activist who won a Nobel Peace Prize. 

In 2016, he met the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled leader who is viewed as a dangerous “splittist” by Beijing. In 2017, he was one of two House members to push the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which called for sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for “undermining fundamental freedoms and autonomy” there. The bill did not pass until 2019, when Walz took up his position as governor of Minnesota. But he still won praise from a human rights activist in Hong Kong: “The fact that he supported it when very few people did and that his support was sustained – that’s different and that’s who he is.”

Some critics also claim that Walz, as governor, has allowed China to infiltrate institutions throughout the state. They point specifically to Beijing-backed Confucius Institutes, which teach Chinese language and culture to college students in the United States. But the University of Minnesota shut down its institute after Walz took office, and St. Cloud State University has suspended its institute, pending a review.

Although the governor has called for engagement with China, especially on climate change and trade, he has not been afraid to also question its foreign policy. Last year, in an interview with a Japanese newspaper, he said he was “disappointed with China’s recent performance – on the Ukraine issue, they are on Russia’s side.”

None of this supports the claim that Walz is a Manchurian candidate. 

In China, few are predicting that Walz, as vice president, would have a significant impact on Washington-Beijing relations. Zha Daojiong, an international relations scholar at Peking University, told the Washington Postthat, on U.S. policy toward China, there is “a ready and rich template among the two political parties in America” that would not change much with a single election.

The political kerfuffle over Harris’ selection of Walz actually tells us a lot more about ourselves than about the veep wannabe. In the U.S. today, there is a bipartisan streak of unhinged fear and hostility toward the PRC. It runs so deep and so wide that a substantial segment of American punditry loses its mind over the emergence of a politician who has pleasant memories of living in and visiting China in more youthful days, a politician who has dared to advocate for engagement with Beijing, even as he criticizes much of its behavior today. And the rest of us, generally, respond as if this is pretty normal.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/tim-walz-china-policy/

MOST OF THE WESTERN CRITICISM ABOUT CHINA'S "HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE" HAVE BEEN BASED ON SINOPHOBIA RATHER THAT REALITY. IN ITS OWN WAY, AMERICA COMMITS FAR MORE "HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE" BY SHEER INVASION, SANCTIONS AND OTHER DISCREET DEVICES SUCH AS IMPRISONMENT THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY ONN EARTH... TIM WALZ CONTINUES ON THE WESTERN SINOPHOBIA BENT AND THE ARTICLE BY "RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT" IS HIGHLY BIASED AND POLITICISED...

CHINA IS CORRECT ON THE UKRAINE-RUSSIA ISSUE.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.