Also Oklahoma: https://apnews.com/general-news-96b8a77a2f7b177a5c20431940860c06

(from 2020 is the most recent I could find on their child marriage laws)

Oklahoma lawmakers rejected a bill that would have stripped from parents and legal guardians of minors the legal power to consent to their marriages.

Oklahoma law allows teenagers 16 and older to get married if a parent or legal guardian consents or through a court order. Anyone younger than 16 must obtain a court order to get married.

Anyway, general point being, the US ruling class does not give a rat's ass about protecting children. It just really likes using the law like a hammer and taking it on minority groups via selective enforcement and/or false accusations. We can expect that's what will happen here. They launder it through issues like this precisely because it makes you sound like a bad person if you aren't salivating to inflict maximum damage on the worst of predators. But in practice, we know they aren't exactly going to be rushing to use it on white cops, legislators, rich people, ya know. And we know US cops suck at actually solving cases much less doing it accurately, unless it involves targeting minorities or enemies of the state (then they suddenly remember how to make things happen).

Oh and in case anyone thinks Freedom House is some impartial org that just happens to also rate Germany highly, take a gander at what they give China:

https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores

A 9 out of 100

There's also this:

https://freedomhouse.org/effects-us-foreign-aid-freeze-freedom-house

Germany today not only scores an impressive 95 out of 100 on the Freedom House index, reflecting strong civil liberties and political rights

Freedom in the World is a yearly survey and report by the U.S.-based non-governmental organization Freedom House that measures the degree of civil liberties and political rights in every nation and significant related and disputed territories around the world.

Same energy as "we investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong."

It's wild. If the US was put on an honest human rights watchlist, its domestic crimes throughout its existence are already huge, but if we included everything done as an empire, it'd easily be one of the biggest violators of human rights in recorded history.

an innocent man

* man who has headed up an organization of mass murder through conscious neglect and profiteering

father of two young children

* who helped murder god knows how many fathers, mothers, and more through exploiting people's health conditions for money

Make America Safe Again

* for rich white men who exploit others, as if most of them don't already walk scot-free anyway

seek the death penalty

* to scare straight anyone who thinks of holding accountable rich white men who exploit others

The capitalist class is nothing if not consistent when it comes to projection.

Over the past 25 years, the world has bent to the vision of one man. In the course of a generation, he not only short-circuited the transition to democracy in his own country, and in neighboring countries, but set in motion a chain of events that has shattered the transatlantic order that prevailed after World War II. In the global turn against democracy, he has played, at times, the role of figurehead, impish provocateur, and field marshal. We are living in the Age of Vladimir Putin.

What this ridiculous "great man theory" style analysis tells me is that even in decline, they refuse to take responsibility for anything. They tried to have total control over Russia and couldn't, tried to encroach on it and overextended in the effort, and now they're acting like it was a grand game of chess they were outplayed on instead of the material conditions on the ground. Infantile reductionist framing of complicated factors involving many countries.

I know the whole thing about Trump being a narcissist is kind of surface level problems with the US, but I rarely actually sit through listening to him speak and it's striking how on the nose the characteristics are. It seems clear he wants to humiliate the guy in front of a large audience and make him kiss the ring, and that's why it's not a private meeting. Though in actuality, to me, it humiliates everyone involved in the discussion; they all come out looking ridiculous in various ways. It's like one of those internet arguments that feels important to the people involved in the moment, but just looks like petty noise from the outside.

Thompson was the head of a US-based terrorist organization that operates with full legal complicity from the US government, known for its part in making billions off of the plight of sick people.

It is kind of satisfying to report on them like they report on others.

Beijing is conducting espionage activities on what Western governments say is an unprecedented scale, mobilizing security agencies, private companies and Chinese civilians in its quest to undermine rival states and bolster the country’s economy.

Reads like pure projection. Like if you change the wording to:

Washington is conducting espionage activities on what anti-imperialist governments say is an unprecedented scale, mobilizing security agencies, private companies and American civilians in its quest to undermine rival states and bolster the country’s economy.

It's basically just what the US has been doing for decades.

I'm sure China is doing some covert offensive things. It'd be a bit odd if they weren't considering they can't have any lasting peace while the western empire is still going. In that sense, it's more like defensive offense, most likely, in the same general meaning as Palestine trying to survive a genocide when they take out an occupier tank. Some of it's probably real, some probably fabricated to manufacture consent for cold war, but either way, the characterization of it reads like very clear projection.

I don't even know what to say. Just thinking about the amount of planning going into this terrorism.

"Bully returns home, tells mom it was traumatizing when victim fought back."