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Letters to the Editor, Jan. 10 Tuesday Jan 10, 2017 at 12:01 AM Treason and conflicts For sure, the presidunce-elect has no clue how close his tweets to or about the Soviet — oops, the Russian — thug are skating in the ultimate direction of a charge of treason. (Hey, Donald, they very nicely provide background that a federal prosecutor might gleefully use in your trial.) Can’t any of your his intrepid Trump-chumps give him some friendly but serious advice on this? Lying and tossing out insults are of course what he has made the lingua franca of normal political speech, with all the protections of the Constitution, so we must accommodate ourselves to them. Some of his tweets might have flirted with libel laws, but hey, we have to give him some wiggle room. The Donald isn’t perfect, after all. Conflicts of interest, on the other hand, many unknown but some not only known but highly egregious, like the Dunce’s hotel business in D.C., may warrant impeachment and removal from office if they are not divested, like right away. A lot of this stuff has to do with the civil code and its restraints and penalties. Let’s consider that a mere quibble for the moment, but treason? Surely that would involve a hefty amount of jail time, perhaps life without parole? And his place of residence would be far less posh than any of his hotels. T. Gunn Talent Trump lacks integrity Integrity is the quality of being honest and fair. Most of us would probably like to be thought of as displaying integrity since we generally value integrity in others. When someone, politician, businessman, neighbor, or family member shows us dishonesty or deception, their integrity is lost. Like virginity, integrity is an attribute that, once lost, can never be recovered. In science, integrity is critical. If one’s opinion is challenged by the evidence, integrity demands questioning the opinion, and rejection if it’s falsified by the evidence. We must hold science and scientists to the bar of integrity. Apparently, no such expectation exists for politicians. We have just completed an election cycle when the candidate guilty of more transparent lies — probably than every prior presidential candidate through our nation’s history combined — managed to secure enough votes in critical states to achieve the presidency. We’ll soon have a president totally lacking in integrity who will serve as a model to our kids and the world demonstrating that dishonesty, deception and blatant lies are rewarded in this country. And what are the missile launchers expected to do if they receive an order to launch our nuclear weapons? Wonder if it’s a joke? Trisha Vigil Talent