It's a pretty rare day when I devote an entire column to sports. But today has to be one of those days, because Major League Baseball just took two giant steps forward that will right two historic wrongs that simply had no right to still exist in the year 2020. The Cleveland Indians announced they were dropping their racially-insensitive name, and the league finally decided to overturn a decision made 51 years ago and include the Negro Leagues in their official definition of what constituted a "major league" in the sport. Both, as I said, were two giant leaps forward for equality and inclusiveness, and both should be duly celebrated.

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Last night, while watching the continuing study in contradiction that is the Republican National Convention, I had to wonder at several points who, exactly, is president right now? After all, the campaign for Donald Trump seems to be operating from the point of view that if only Trump were president then he could solve America's massive current problems. On subject after subject, we were told that things out there are really, really scary and that the only response to this dystopian world was to elect a savior who would deliver us from all the frightfulness.

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Today I am going to spike a football in the end zone. That's as appropriate as a sports metaphor gets, really, because I am celebrating the fact that the Washington Ethnic Slurs football team has finally decided to retire their official team name. They seem to be in some sort of discussions (variously reported as being with Native American groups, the military, or possibly someone who already owns the trademark and/or copyright) about what the new team name will be, but as of Monday they will never be called the "Washington Redskins" ever again. And that is indeed a reason for an end-zone celebration.

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As time goes by, it is looking more and more like the television show Trump: The Reality-Show President is just not going to be renewed for a fifth season. After all, Fox News just released a poll showing Donald Trump a whopping 12 points behind Joe Biden. That's tough news from your sponsoring network, obviously. When CNN released an earlier poll showing Trump down 14 points, he had his lawyer try to intimidate the network into retracting the poll. It didn't work, of course. So what will Trump's lawyer now have to say to Fox?

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President Donald Trump seems to have settled on a theme for his campaign, as he doubles down on blatant racism. Think that's too strongly put? We don't. Consider the following, from just the past week:

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This week, an American president ordered the violent removal of peaceful protesters -- who were doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble, speak, and petition the government for redress -- from a public park so that he could then walk across the park and hold up a borrowed Bible for a photo opportunity with both the Secretary of Defense and (clad in battle fatigues) the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Afterward, the Trump White House immediately issued a propaganda video of the event. Later that evening, a military helicopter clearly marked with a red cross took offensive action against the protesters (which is banned by the Geneva Conventions, and is now under investigation). Later still, the president and all his enablers in the White House lied through their teeth about the entire incident, repeatedly. At week's end, we learned of another affront to the Constitution by the Trump administration, when it was revealed that federal law enforcement had unconstitutionally seized a shipment of cloth face masks created by a Black Lives Matter affiliate, and the only possible reason they did so was that the Department of Justice apparently didn't like the messages displayed on the masks (which read: "Stop killing black people," and: "Defund police").

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In a surreal bit of coincidence this week, America saw a simultaneous broadcast of President Trump stumbling and lying his way through a primetime Oval Office address, while on another channel former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin danced around in a frilly pink bear costume while rapping "Baby Got Back," which contains the memorable line: "I like big butts and I cannot lie...." Signs of the impending apocalypse? You be the judge. What flashed through our mind was the old quote from Hunter S. Thompson: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Or, as we might put it (with a fake Sarah Palin accent): "How's that 'stable genius' stuff workin' out for ya now?"

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Roman Emperor Nero didn't actually fiddle while Rome burned. It's a myth. Violins (or "fiddles") wouldn't exist for another 1,500 years or so, making the very concept impossible. That's not to say Nero might not have blatantly ignored a flaming crisis, of course, it's just quibbling about the literal meaning of the maxim. Now, American Emperor-With-No-Clothes Donald Trump didn't fiddle while the country was hit by a pandemic, either. Instead, he played golf. Twice. That's right -- in the midst of a huge crisis, Trump spent the entire weekend playing golf.

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Throughout the presidency of Donald Trump there have been many weeks that have left everyone completely exhausted, because so many momentous events have happened with such blinding speed. Each time, it's been tempting to say: "Trump can never top that week" at the end of it. We've all but given up doing so, because no matter how intense things get, there always seems to be a way to ratchet things up the very next week. However, that temptation was almost overwhelming this particular week.

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Welcome back once again to our year-end "McLaughlin Awards," named for the awards categories we lifted from the McLaughlin Report years ago. We've added a category here and there over time, but it's still the same basic list.

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