Free Republic

PHOENIX — What former president Donald Trump seems to think is his best hope to unravel the 2020 election looks a lot like an outsize board game — a game with few apparent rules and no clear endpoint. On a recent day on the floor of a sports arena with a roof shaped like a Pringle, there were four teams of ballot-counters clad in cartoonish colors: banana yellow, Gumby green, Cookie Monster blue, and Elmo red. They were clustered in groups of three around big round tables, each outfitted with a lazy Susan that matched their T-shirts and whirled ballots...

Senator Elizabeth Warren named a new chief of staff on Thursday, changing up her office ahead of a possible presidential run and making it one of only a handful in the Senate to be led by a person of color. **SNIP** Although Reid is not on Warren’s campaign team, her appointment is a sign the senator is taking the diversity of her staff seriously. Earlier this year, Warren faced criticism for releasing the results of a DNA test she took to address President Trump’s taunts that she had lied about her claims of having distant Native American heritage. Some progressives...

Since a federal jury on Friday sentenced the convicted bomber to death, the [Boston Marathon] finish line suddenly seems to be a place of ambivalence. Fresh flowers are accumulating. A sense of sorrow lingers in the air. Sightseers who come to snap a photo feel a little self-conscious. Residents train their gaze on the line, and the conversations turn to death — and disappointment. “I was shocked,” said Scott Larson, 47, a records manager who works near the finish line. “The death penalty — for Boston.” To many, the death sentence almost feels like a blot on the city’s collective...