On a return trip to Towanda, Pa from  NJ,  after a long day attending my late mother's Vocal Competition (Violetta DuPont Vocal Competition at FDU in Madison ) and bonding with some of my children and friends after the event, I decided to take the Pa. Turnpike from the Lehigh Valley (Mile Post 56).

Being extremely haggard after a very long day I proceeded uneventfully until I got to the Keyser Avenue Toll Plaza, around 3 am Monday morning when I seemed to discover that without exact change I was going to spend the rest of the night at the toll booth. I managed to find enough change to get through and prior to getting to the final Clarks Summit toll booth I pulled over to the side of the road and searched my old Ford Ranger for change. After reaching under my seats and in the recesses of my seats I finally accumulated enough coins and deposited my riches at the toll booth; I got a nickle back.

What gives? How about some kind of change machines like they have at a laundromats and car washes about 200-300 feet up stream from these last two booths? Or how about this over the top concept? How about, late at night, having the human toll taker at the Wyoming Valley Toll Plaza (Milepost 112) offer, say, $3 in change in nickles and quarters so weary senior citizens don't have to needlessly get their blood pressure up.

Now I know there has to be some simple procedure which I did not observe in my tired and apprehensive mental state. And I know that ignorance of the law is no excuse. But there has to be a better way!

Sincerely,

Joseph Dupont

Towanda, PA

Lately Trump Messiah's rhetoric consists of accusing the system of being rigged, corrupt. But he has no idea of the reality behind it. Here it is:

The system is rigged by voter suppression laws in many states. Under the pretext of preventing voter fraud-- something that occurs almost never-- hundreds of thousands of valid voters have been purged from the rolls in state after state. In each state, it is the work of Republican legislatures designed to invalidate as many likely Democrats as possible. And they're cute about it. Alabama now requires voters to have state-issued photo ID's, but closed all the offices in majority-Black areas where they'd go to get one! Texas does not accept photo ID's from the University of Texas, a state institution, (students are more likely Democrats) but does accept non-photo membership cards from the NRA (gun worshipers are usually Republican).  Now if voter fraud were really an issue, this should be a problem. There's nothing to stop someone from getting multiple membership cards under a variety of fake names. But then, no one really wants to cast a bogus vote anyway.

Another way the system is rigged is by widespread gerrymandering. In the latest National election, Republicans won a record number of seats in the House. Now you'd think that the GOP got the cast majority of votes overall, but that's not true. Democrats won the most votes overall. But state legislatures, run by Republicans have drawn ridiculous districts that confine Democrats into as few districts as possible, so that Republicans don't risk losing any of the rest. As they, by all rights, should.

So the system is manifestly unrepresentative. And we see that the Republican Party does not want, nor can they win, a fair fight. Neither do they have a mandate. The only way they can win is by rigging the game. And they have.  The question is, how long will the people tolerate this? How long will they allow themselves to be distracted by racial resentments, wedge issues, and pious blather, while the Republicans they elect add to their economic frustrations by continuing to steer the rewards to the 1%? How long will people be stupid?

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA