Al Roker opens up about his 15-year-old son's development delays and his fears he would 'never walk or talk'

Didn't know about Roker's son so I thought I would read this story from tabloid trash Daily Mail's website. Their hatred for Trump is so deep it's indescribable. Somehow Roker and The Daily Mail are trying to imply Trump is responsible for his kid's developmental challenges! You know, like how Barbara Streisand blamed Trump for gaining weight.

["The journalist went on to describe how her son's challenges started to materialize almost immediately after his birth."]

So they noticed his challenges when he was born in 2003. Surprised they didn't borrow Barry's favorite line..."It's Bush's fault."

Wonder if these assholes know how ridiculous they sound?

-------------------------------

Al Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts have finally revealed the developmental challenges their 15-year-old son Nicholas has faced.

The 63-year-old Today show host and his ABC News journalist wife opened up to People at the 2018 ADAPT Leadership Awards Gala in New York on Thursday.

'He was dealing with some developmental delays,' they told the magazine, before Deborah got more detailed.

Opening up: Al Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts have finally revealed the developmental challenges their 15-year-old son Nicholas has faced

'There has been a stigma over the years, especially if it’s not an obvious challenge that people know, and I think to be able to share and inspire and to give other people the encouragement, I think that life can be enriched and can be better and can be in some ways richer when you are loving and supporting and dealing with somebody who is dealing with challenges.'

She added that 'we hope that more people will be open to expressing and maybe sharing that a lot of us are dealing with challenges in life.'

The journalist went on to describe how her son's challenges started to materialize almost immediately after his birth.

'It was pretty apparent that he was facing some challenges,' she explained 'and we weren’t sure what his world and what our future would be.'

Real talk: The journalist went on to describe how her son's challenges started to materialize almost immediately after his birth (pictured back in June 2007)

But they soon put together a team including therapists and specialists who were instrumental in his growth. 'We watched him blossom,' she added.

The 57-year-old also discussed the anxiety that her and her husband felt after he was born.

'We wondered was he going to speak? Was he going to walk,' she said, before getting more positive, describing how 'in no time, he was running and talking more than I thought he would ever do.

All together! Al and Deborah also share 20-year-old daughter Leila (family pictured in March 2009)

Weatherman Al also added that Donald Trump's divisive comments were not helpful when it came to motivating people and helping people accept his son.

'There’s been a lot of talk about building big, beautiful walls,' he said, 'well, we have to tear down those walls, tear them down, make them nice.'

Al and Deborah also share 20-year-old daughter Leila. 

Being positive! Weatherman Al also added that Donald Trump's divisive comments were not helpful when it came to motivating people and helping people accept his son

Being positive???

Al Roker opens up about his 15-year-old son's development delays and his fears he would 'never walk or talk'

Cell phones vs Guns

So when there's a shooting liberals need to redirect the blame. Lurking behind the bushes is one of three 'culprits'. The gun itself, tighter gun control laws, the NRA. Usually, it's all three. Now L.L. Bean, Walmart, Dick's, etc put a stop to selling certain guns.

Both of these 'weapons' require the user to take some action. According to the article below which one inflicts the most injury?

Which one gets all the notoriety?

-----------------------------

• Over 2.5 million people in the U.S. are involved in road accidents each year. The population of the US is just 318.9 million. At this rate, the American people could be extinct in two human lifespans. This is an astounding number of traffic accidents.
• Of these, 1.6 million have a cell phone involved in them. That’s 64% of all the road accidents in the United States. Over half the road accidents in the States have cell phones involved, and if this doesn’t make you realize just how potent it is, what will?
• 37,000+ people die in automobile crashes in the U.S every year
• Every year, about 421,000 people are injured in crashes that have involved a driver who was distracted in some way.
• Each year, over 330,000 accidents caused by texting while driving lead to severe injuries. This means that over 78% of all distracted drivers are distracted because they have been texting while driving.
• 1 out of 4 car accidents in the US are caused by texting while driving.
• Texting and driving is 6 times more likely to get you in an accident than drunk driving. That’s right, it is actually safer for someone to get wasted and get behind the wheel than to text and do it.
• It takes an average of three seconds after a driver’s mind is taken off the road for any road accident to occur. This is the bare minimum amount of time it takes, and it is surprisingly small. Three seconds is the time it takes to turn your ignition when starting your car.
• Reading a text message while driving successfully distracts a driver for a minimum of five seconds each time. This means that the chances of an accident occurring while reading a text is extremely high indeed.
• The average speed in the US is about 55mph. Taking five seconds to read a text in this time means that the driver travels the length of a football field without looking at the road, or being distracted. There are so many vehicles on the road now that this means there is a huge chance of something terrible happening in this distance.
• When you text while driving, the time that you spend with your eyes off the road increases by about 400%. It is already dangerous enough to be distracted by NATURE while driving. So why make things 4 times as bad by texting?
• The chances of a crash because of any reason is increased by 23 times when you are texting. Even if the crash is another driver’s fault, you will probably have been able to avoid it if you had been looking at the road instead of the phone.
• When you compare this to the 2.8 times more risk that dialing a number on a phone imparts, you know that you are playing with fire.
• Every day, 11 teenagers die because they were texting while driving.
• 94% of teenagers understand the consequences of texting and driving, but 35% of them admitted that they do it anyway.
• Of all the teenagers ever involved in fatal accidents every year, 21% were using a cell phone at the time of the accident.
• Teen drivers have a 400% higher chance of being in a car crash when texting while driving than adults.
• 25% of teens respond to at least one text while driving, every single time.
• 10% of adults and 20% of teenagers have admitted that they have entire conversations over text message platforms while driving.
• 82% of American teenagers own a cell phone and use it regularly to call and text message.
• 52% of these talk on the phone while driving, and 32% text on the road.
• When polled, 77% of adults and 55% of teenage drivers say that they can easily manage texting while driving.
• When teens text while they drive, they veer off lane 10% of their total drive time.
• A study at the University of Utah found out that the reaction time for a teen using a cell phone is the same as that of a 70-year-old who isn’t using one.
• 48% of kids in their younger teenage years have been in a car while the driver was texting. Over 1600 children in the same age group are killed each year because of crashes involving texters.

Cell phones vs Guns

TV Ratings: Oscars Drop to All-Time Low 26.5 Million Viewers

Okay, I haven't watched the Oscars like forever. But FOX reported only two minutes into the show the Trump bashing began. I suppose this is turning a lot of people off. Funny thing though. In the last 4 or 5 months, you can't watch TV or go on the internet without reading something about Weinstein's mile-long line of women who were sexually abused. So there should have been some Weinstein bashing right? 

Nope...he's a Democrat. 

Weinstein Accusers

(He's getting into Bill Clinton territory)

----------------------------

A comparatively uneventful Oscar telecast led the way on TV Sunday night — though updated numbers have the telecast somewhat predictably stumbling to an all-time low.

The kudocast, nearly four hours long, tumbled 19 percent from the previous year to 26.5 million viewers. That's easily the least-watched Oscars in history, trailing 2008 by more than 5 million. Overnight returns had the lengthy ABC broadcast averaging an 18.9 rating among households between 8 and 11 p.m. ET. Compared to the same stat for 2017, the night the wrong best picture winner was named, that was down a more modest 16 percent.

TV Ratings: Oscars Drop to All-Time Low 26.5 Million Viewers

Do You Know Him?

My pastor played this at my church Sunday.

Most powerful inspirational video I have ever see! Please turn up the volume and watch to the end. Hope it has the same impact on you that it did on me. 

Video 399

Do You Know Him?

Statue of Marion Barry, controversial former mayor, unveiled in Washington

Bear in mind while Confederate statues are coming down they're erecting this one. If he wasn't a liberal politician he would have been behind bars. Oh wait...he was behind bars.

Remember this?

---------------------------------------------------

A new statue of Marion Barry, a former mayor of Washington, D.C., is seen after its unveiling, March 3, 2018. (DC Council)

To some in Washington, D.C., he was a “living legend” who advocated for the city’s poor. To others he was a controversial figure remembered for being re-elected mayor despite serving a prison sentence for possession of crack cocaine.

On Saturday, an 8-foot-high bronze statue of former Mayor Marion Barry was unveiled on Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital, just blocks from the White House.

The statue, designed by artist Steven Weitzman, was ordered by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Washington's Fox 5 reported. The estimated $250,000 cost was covered by a combination of public and private funds, the Washington Business Journal reported.

The move to honor Barry, who died at age 78 in 2014, may seem mystifying to non-Washingtonians. But among Barry's supporters, the statue is an appropriate tribute to a legitimate D.C. icon — a man so popular and influential that he walked out of federal prison and immediately began winning elections again with one of the most improbable comebacks in American political history.

"He was a living legend," said City Councilman Trayon White, during an appearance Thursday on an influential local radio show hosted by Kojo Nnamdi. "Marion Barry was an integral part of getting D.C. where it is today. ... To honor a man like that who touched so many people — it's right for the city.”

Marion Barry, a former mayor of Washington, D.C., who died in 2014, is seen in a photo from July 6, 2009. (Associated Press)

Not everyone views Barry so fondly. When the radio show started taking phone calls, the first caller blasted Barry as an "abysmal mayor" who presided over an era of corruption and mismanagement but now benefits from what the caller referred to as "convenient historical amnesia."

Wait. What? D.C. is erecting a statue to honor crack smoking Mayor Marion Barry who served 6 months in a federal prison? Talk about offensive statues.... #LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder

— Deplorable JP (@JP61926104) March 3, 2018

Regardless of the personal opinions on him, there's no denying that Barry had a massive influence on the capital city. With modern Washington undergoing widespread gentrification and large numbers of poorer black residents being priced out and leaving, Barry evokes an earlier time when the District truly was "Chocolate City" — one of the power centers of black America.

"Marion Barry was an integral part of getting D.C. where it is today."

- City Councilman Trayon White

He's right:

Despite his widely acknowledged personal failings, he is regarded as having enriched and elevated other black residents and partially credited with helping create the robust black middle class that populates both Washington and neighboring Prince George's County in Maryland.

City Councilwoman Anita Bonds, in an email to the Associated Press, recalled Barry's "magnetic personality" and credited him with directing 45 percent of government contracts to minority-owned businesses and launching multiple initiatives, "to uplift communities that were often overlooked and left out."

A local columnist in the 1990s coined the title "mayor for life" — a term which evokes something closer to a third world demagogue than a modern democratic official. But Barry's supporters embrace that nickname as a badge of pride, a symbol of Barry's lifelong connection to the city and its residents. A generation of black Washingtonians got their first paying jobs through one of Barry's summer youth employment programs.

Barry brought a legitimate and undeniable pre-politics resume as a pioneering civil rights activist. A Memphis native, Barry became heavily involved in the nascent civil rights movement as a university student in the late 50s and 60s, serving as the first chairman of the seminal Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He moved to Washington in 1965 to run the SNCC office there.

Barry quickly became deeply involved in Washington's black community, founding a program to provide job training to unemployed black men and getting elected first to the school board, then to city council. In 1978, he became Washington's second elected mayor. He served three terms, which were marked by increasingly erratic behavior, corruption allegations and widespread suspicions of drug and alcohol abuse.

The 1990 sting and subsequent trial caused him not to seek a fourth term. He was sentenced to six months in prison for cocaine possession, although a deadlocked jury couldn't convict him on some of the more serious charges.

In one notorious episode, the Washington Post reported in January 1992 that inmates and a federal official claimed to have seen Barry engaged in a sex act with a female visitor in front of dozens of people. Barry denied the claims.

After his 1992 release, Barry immediately ran for and won a seat on the city council, then successfully ran for mayor again in 1994 and served one term. Barry left politics for few years, then ran for city council again and won in 2005, serving until his death in 2014.

Throughout his entire career, Barry was dogged by legal troubles, corruption allegations, drunk-driving arrests and a host of other issues that would have obliterated the career of most politicians.

But Barry's ultimate legacy and popularity might be summarized by the campaign slogan he adopted when he emerged from prison and dove straight back into politics: "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C."

Statue of Marion Barry, controversial former mayor, unveiled in Washington