Artful Dodger:   You state as the conclusion to this post that, "it's the liberal policies in America that are at fault for ALL the racial problems."

I will certainly grant that neither party can wash its hands of a racist past, & that Dirksen was a hero to the civil rights movement. But, here in the South, we had only 1 political party to speak of until after the Civil Rights Act passed.  Democrats were the only party in this region from Reconstruction to that time.  Senator Thurmond switched parties in '64 because of the Civil Rights Act.  Many of the Dems you mentioned would not be considered "liberals" cuz there was only 1 game in town.

LBJ, whose hands were not clean either, knew he would loose the Dem Party in the South by promoting & signing the Civil Rights Act.  Sure enough, Nixon was able to use a "Southern Strategy" & '68 & '72 to win elections & set up a strong Republican base there.  Many of the Conservative Southern Dems switched parties to the GOP aftewards.  The few that stayed, like Hollins, changed some their positions.  Others like George Wallace & Lester Maddox remained Dems but became loose cannons.  Today, now that all the Party switching has taking place, the Dem. Party, in particular the Progressive wing, is very weak in the Southern states.

But, I agree with you that both parties have a checkered past when it comes to race relations, but there are some compexities, particularly in the South.

Artful Dodger:  My local weather lady, who is quite nice on the eyes I might add, is also a meteorologist & knows the science quite well, also.  But, she does not presume to be an expert on global warming.  Niether, to the best of my knowledge, does she do work for big oil cos.  IMHO qualifications do matter.  Monetary interests does have an influence on opinion.  The fact that these 2 guys appeared on O'Reilly Factor does not make them experts.  My guess is that they were doing it for showmanship.  Or, to represent their moneyed interests.  Same for those people who appear on Keith Olberman (sp?)

As for for the absolute assertion that there has been no global warming since 1998, I'm not a scientist & I can't say for sure (& neither can you).  But, I can say that the vast majority of scientists don't hold that view, or the view that a lot of global warming is not man made.