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Washington: President Donald Trump told reporters aboard the Air Force One that the conditions are not in place for a thorough overhaul of the US immigration system.

"What I'd like to do is a comprehensive immigration plan. But our country and political forces are not ready yet... There are two sides of a story. It's always tough," he said in what was originally supposed to be an off-the-record session with journalists accompanying him on a visit to France.

File image of US president Donald Trump. AP

The White House subsequently authorised media outlets to report the President's comments later on Thursday, reports Efe news.

His statement on immigration reform came in response to a question about the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, established by predecessor Barack Obama to shield hundreds of thousands of undocumented youths from deportation.

Trump said he has not made a decision over the DACA, while emphasising that he and not his subordinates would make the final determination.

"It's a decision that I make and it's a decision that's very very hard to make. I really understand the situation now," he said.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security said that DACA would remain in effect for the time being, though Texas and a number of other states have threatened to sue the federal government if the program is not ended by 5 September.

On the related matter of his plan for a wall on the US-Mexican border, Trump said that his remarks about installing solar panels on the structure had not been in jest.

"We have major companies looking at that. Look, there's no better place for solar than the Mexico border the southern border. And there is a very good chance we can do a solar wall, which would actually look good," he said.

The president said the wall needs to be transparent for the safety of people on the US side.

"And I'll give you an example. As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don't see them they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It's over. As crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall," Trump said.

He also suggested that the barrier would not have to extend the entire length of the 2,000-mile border.

"Remember this, it's a 2,000-mile border, but you don't need 2,000 miles of a wall because you have a lot of natural barriers. You have mountains. You have some rivers that are violent and vicious. You have some areas that are so far away that you don't really have people crossing. So you don't need that. But you'll need anywhere from 700 to 900 miles," he added.

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United States not ready for comprehensive immigration reform: Donald Trump - Firstpost

Theres great news just in from the folks at the ACLU of North Carolina:

RICHMOND, Va. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit today ruled 10-5 that the commissioners of Rowan County, North Carolina, violated the Constitution when they opened public meetings by coercing public participation in prayers that overwhelmingly advanced beliefs specific to one religion. The decision upheld a lower court ruling.

This ruling is a great victory for the rights of all residents to participate in their local government without fearing discrimination or being forced to join in prayers that go against their beliefs, said ACLU of North Carolina Legal Director Chris Brook, who argued the case. We are very pleased that the full Fourth Circuit has upheld a bedrock principle of the First Amendment: that government should not be in the business of promoting one set of religious beliefs over others.

The national ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief and the ACLU of North Carolina filed a lawsuit challenging the commissioners coercive prayer practice in March 2013 on behalf of three Rowan County residents.

All weve ever wanted is for Rowan County to be a welcoming place for everyone, no matter their religious beliefs, and I am so glad that the court agrees that the Constitution is on our side, said Nan Lund, the lead plaintiff in the case. No one in this community should fear being forced by government officials to participate in a prayer, or fear being discriminated against because they didnt participate in a prayer before a meeting for all the public.

Between 2007 and 2013, more than 97 percent of the prayers delivered by Rowan County commissioners before public meetings were specific to one religion, Christianity. The commissioners had instructed those present to stand and join in the prayer, leading many residents to feel coerced and pressured into doing so.

This decision serves as an important reminder that there are significant constitutional limits on government-sponsored prayer, said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

In May 2015, a federal district court ruled Rowans practice unconstitutional and ordered the commissioners to cease opening their meetings with coercive, sectarian prayer and a request that the public join them in prayers that advanced one faith.

Rowan County appealed that ruling and in September 2016 a divided 2-1 panel of the Fourth Circuit overturned the district court ruling. However, all 15 judges on the Fourth Circuit later agreed to vacate and reconsider that 2-1 decision. Oral arguments were held in front of all 15 judges in March 2017.

This is from the courts ruling:

We conclude that the Constitution does not allow what happened in Rowan County. The prayer practice served to identify the government with Christianity and risked conveying to citizens of minority faiths a message of exclusion. And because the commissioners were the exclusive prayer-givers, Rowan Countys invocation practice falls well outside the more inclusive, minister-oriented practice of legislative prayer described in [the case of] Town of Greece [v. Galloway]. Indeed, if elected representatives invite their constituents to participate in prayers invoking a single faith for meeting upon meeting, year after year, it is difficult to imagine constitutional limits to sectarian prayer practice.

The bottom line: This is just another powerful indicator of the critical importance of the federal courts in blunting Trumpism and of progressives staying fully engaged in the court nominations and confirmation process.

A statement issued yesterday afternoon by the good ...

Read the rest here:
BREAKING: First Amendment wins in new Court of Appeals government prayer decision - The Progressive Pulse

As the election results rolled in, it became clear that Clinton would not shatter the ceiling that night. The mood grew darker in the Javits Center. The confetti never came.

"Hillary Clinton has been a beacon for me really as a woman," Burson told CNN. "That's really where I thought that this was going, to be the election of all elections to inspire women."

So Burson, an artist based in St. Louis, took what she called an overwhelming emptiness and turned it into something positive. She channeled her emotions into her art.

After the watch party, Burson set off on a mission. She wanted to find the actual confetti that had been loaded into the cannons that night.

So when she needed a new medium to express her reaction this time around, she said the untouched 2016 confetti seemed like a natural progression.

It took about two weeks to track down the real confetti. Burson had knocked on doors and made phone calls for Clinton's campaign, so she started asking around to the other volunteers. One person put her in touch with another until she found the right company in Chicago.

They had 200 pounds of the confetti from the cannons, packaged up in cardboard boxes and plastic bags. The company wrote a letter of verification to ensure it was the real deal.

Burson bought it all.

"And Still I Rise" was chosen as an inspirational title from a focus group of young women, the group that Burson wanted to be motivated by her art.

"I want women and little girls to just don't feel defeated by this," Burson said. "Keep going. Keep fighting."

With the rest of the 200 pounds that isn't in the main snowglobe, she's going to create a series of miniature versions of the exhibit. Smaller "And Still I Rise" globes with the same confetti inside will be sold inside Planned Parenthoods in St. Louis, and all proceeds will go back to the organization.

"I just feel whether it's running for office or breaking their own glass ceiling in some other way, now's a time not to give up," Burson said.

Since the exhibit was installed in May, Burson has received countless responses from women inspired by her work.

"I never dreamed it was going to be this exciting and this exhilarating," she said. "I want that flame to stay alive among women."

Read more:
An artist creates a giant snowglobe with Hillary Clinton's unused election night confetti - CNN International

A Republican operative who reportedly sought to obtain emails from Hillary Clintons private serverfrom people he thought were Russian hackers killed himself in a hotel room in May.

Peter W. Smith, 81, left a file of documents in the Rochester, Minnesota room where he died, including what police described as a suicide note, according to The Chicago Tribune.

Days before his death Smith, gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal about his attempts to obtain the emails and his relationship to former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Smith denied to theJournalthat he was working with the Trump campaign. But in one recruitment document obtained by the Journal, Smith claimed links to Flynn, along with then-Trump campaign staff Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Sam Clovis.

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Matt Tait, a security researcher who Smith attempted to recruit to his effort, said in a blog that it"was immediately apparent that Smith was both well connected within the top echelons of the campaignand he seemed to know both Lt. Gen. Flynn and his son well." Tait also said that Smith "never expressed to me any discomfort with the possibility that the emails he was seeking were potentially from a Russian front, a likelihood he was happy to acknowledge."

Smith told the Journal thatlast year he put together a team to track down the more than 30,000 emails that may have been stolen from Clintons private server when she was Secretary of State. Clinton has saidshe deleted the emails because they were personal.Smiths team had found five groups of hackers, two of them purportedly Russian, who claimed to have the emails, the report said.

Related: Michael Flynn's grand nuclear scheme

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York, U.S. April 6, 2017. Emails Clinton said she deleted were a focus of some of her opponents during the election campaign. Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

It was previously known that Smith had died, but it has only become clear that suicide was the cause thanks to a Minnesota state death record obtainedby the Tribune .

According to the Tribune s report, Smithapologized to authorities in the note and insisted that "NO FOUL PLAY WHATSOEVER" was involved in his death. He wrote that he had decided to kill himself because of a "RECENT BAD TURN IN HEALTH SINCE JANUARY, 2017" and had based his timing partly on "LIFE INSURANCE OF $5 MILLION EXPIRING."

The Republican operative had previously carried out opposition research on other targets including former President Bill Clinton. He was involved in exposing the troopergate scandal in the 1990s, which included allegations of womanizing against the president during his time as Arkansas governor. He also led private equity firms for more than 40 years.

Smith predicted in a blog before his death that "As attention turns to international affairs, as it will shortly, the Russian interference story will die of its own weight."

Read more here:
Hillary Clinton's Emails: Peter Smith, GOP Operative Who Tried to Get Them From Russian Hackers, Killed Himself - Newsweek

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Details Emerge in Suicide of GOP Activist Who Sought Hillary Clinton Emails Wall Street Journal (subscription) WASHINGTONPeter W. Smith, a Republican political activist and financier from Chicago who mounted an effort to obtain former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails from Russian hackers, died on May 14 after asphyxiating himself in a hotel room in ... and more »

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Details Emerge in Suicide of GOP Activist Who Sought Hillary Clinton Emails - Wall Street Journal (subscription)