An astonishing 27 states don't even have laws to set an "age floor," meaning that no laws exist to establish the youngest age a minor can get married. Loopholes like this one are what allow minors to get married in the first place. The irony is that sexual abuse is "illegal," yet the government is allowing minors to get married as young as 10 years old. What do these judges expect will occur in these marriages? This is not a way to protect these children, as child marriage can enable abuse and pedophilia.

It's clear that child marriage isn't just an issue in third-world countries. If we truly want to become leaders in this world and set the stage for other countries, we need to reflect that both in our laws and in our morals. Children deserve rights and protection, and this desperately needs to be reflected in our judiciary system.

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Separate statements made on the same day by Pentagon spokesman Dana White exuded a bit more confidence - and far less concern - about how well the US arsenal stacks up against Russia's.

"We've been watching Russia for a long time. We're not surprised," White said, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's State of the Nation address, which highlighted Russia's new nuclear arsenal - including hypersonic missiles that have a nearly unlimited range and are capable of outmaneuvering missile defense systems.

"America is moving forward to modernize our nuclear arsenal and make sure our capabilities aren't being matched," White insisted.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump, with help from the Republican-controlled Congress, has added more than $200 billion to the projected levels of defense spending for fiscal years 2017 through 2019 - a sum more than twice the size of Russia's entire defense budget, which totaled an estimated at $69.2 billion in 2016. Washington's projected military expenditures for fiscal year 2018 is set at $700 billion.

A fair part of that money apparently gets lost to wasteful spending and sloppy accounting. An internal audit leaked to the press in February found that a large Pentagon agency failed to properly keep track of more than $800 million in constructions projects. Plans for a full audit will set the department back another $367 million in 2018.

In 2016, it was reported that the Pentagon had intentionally buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste amid fears Congress would use the explosive findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget.

And while Pentagon officials beg for more money to counter Russian hypersonic technology, there seems to be plenty of cash - $1.4 trillion, to be exact - to pay for Lockheed Martin's defect-riddled F-35.