Parliamentary model might work better for U.S.
America’s democratic system has endured for 250 years, but scandals and corruption involving our current leadership suggest it may be worth considering features of a parliamentary model.
Under such a system, lawmakers can remove a leader through a vote of no confidence, avoiding the slower and more cumbersome impeachment process.
Spain offers a recent example: in June 2018, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was removed from office following a massive corruption scandal. If the United States had a similar mechanism to remove leadership during former President Joe Biden’s age-related decline or President Donald Trump’s major controversies (including the Jan. 6 insurrection and the war in Iran), the country could have avoided further damage and be in a stronger position today.
JOHN CLARKE, DECATUR
Navy design changes would threaten national security
According to recent news reports, the U.S. Navy is considering two major redesigns of aircraft carriers in the construction pipeline — not to make them safer, not to make them more battle-ready, not to make them faster in the water.
No, the changes under consideration are to accommodate President Donald Trump’s aesthetic for the warships. Yes, he wants to change the look of aircraft carriers so they will resemble those he’s seen in World War II movies. Trump wants to move the multistory command center of the ships from near the rear, as the new design calls for, to the middle because that placement will look better to the president.
The second change is to forego modern electromagnetic systems for catapulting planes off carriers and revert to the older steam catapult system because that is what the president wants.
These two presidential accommodations will cost billions of dollars and will create significant delays in shipbuilding. Delays in building aircraft carriers are a danger to national security. And, all to accommodate presidential whims.
What this president has done to the Oval Office, the now demolished East Wing, the now paved-over Rose Garden and the now fouled reflecting pool are all bad enough.
They all used taxpayer money for pure vanity projects and have ruined the look of the People’s House and our nation’s Capitol. Accommodating the whims of the narcissist-in-chief in making changes to aircraft carriers is a national security issue. And the feckless, cowardly elected Republicans shrug and say, “What’s a poor member of Congress supposed to do?” as they enable the travesties against our national heritage and our security.
CAROLE BRUCE JOHNSTON, AVONDALE ESTATES
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