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If the 2016 presidential election were held today, Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonFalse advertising: How the Democrats attempt to rewrite history OPINION | Democrats: Time to wish Hillary Clinton good luck and goodbye House Intelligence Republican: Claims Gowdy acted as second lawyer for Kushner 'horses---t' MORE would still lose the election.

Despite her continued effort to cast blame, Clintons loss should not have come as such a surprise. Her lack of a clear, focused agenda, distasteful attacks on Republicans, and apathy toward stagnating wages among middle class Americans all contributed to her defeat.

Clinton should recognize that her time has passed. She will soon be 73 years old and her home state of New York has two others strong prospective 2020 candidates in Senator Kirsten GillibrandKirsten GillibrandOPINION | Democrats: Time to wish Hillary Clinton good luck and goodbye Dem says ObamaCare repeal effort moves US toward single-payer Jimmy Carter predicts US will eventually have single-payer healthcare system MORE and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

For these reasons among others, Hillary Clinton should not run again.

The Democratic Party must move on from the 2016 loss and find both a new strategy and a new leader.

To be sure, the partys new narrative must move beyond resistance to President Trump and suspicion that the election was somehow stolen from Clinton.

In a poll conducted by The Washington Post earlier this month, only 37 percent of Americans said that the party currently stands for something, while 52 percent said it just stands against Trump.

Resistance has been an ineffective strategy for Democrats in special elections, and there is no indication that it will help win back seats during the 2018 midterm elections.

Instead of dwelling on the 2016 election, the Democrats need to push forward.

Rather than turning to Hillary Clinton for answers, Democrats can trust Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is both qualified and has bipartisan support, to conduct a thorough investigation into the Trump campaign and its alleged collusion with Russian officials.

Through Muellers investigation, the American people will get the answers they deserve. In the meantime, the constant speculation into these matters detracts from focusing on critical issues that hardworking Americans face daily.

The Democratic Party is finally seeing this, prompting the launch of A Better Deal, the partys new policy agenda.

A Better Deals proposed mission is to help build an America in which working people know that somebody has their back.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Schumer, and other top Democrats have rolled out this plan in an effort to present a strong and clear message to voters.

Schumer has described A Better Deal as not about moving the party left or right, nor about appealing to one coalition or another. Pelosi has followed by clarifying that the new focus is not a course correction, but its a presentation correction.

The Democrats are doing exactly what Hillary Clinton failed to do throughout her campaign. A change in message is imperative to the Democrats turning their failing strategy around.

In certain areas, such as the economy and job creation, election polls showed Clinton beating Trump with large margins. However, when she shifted her focus to unsubstantiated calls for unity and opportunity, she lost crucial support.

Unity did not bring the same sense of security as her economic plan. The shift in focus from a concrete plan to an abstract concept was lethal for the Clinton campaign.

With this Better Deal, the Democrats are being careful not to make the same mistake.

This agenda signifies a focus on policy and strategy.

As Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York put it, Republicans talk in headlines, but under this new plan, Democrats speak in fine print.

A Better Deal has the potential to be exactly what the Democrats are looking for in their effort to convince the American people that they are the party of the working class. It will also remind the country that they are a party of substance, and not simply a resistance movement.

Democratic Senator Al FrankenAl FrankenOPINION | Democrats: Time to wish Hillary Clinton good luck and goodbye Franken: Constitutional crisis if Trump uses recess appointment to replace Sessions with someone wholl fire Mueller AT&T discussing merger conditions with DOJ: report MORE says, we have to move on by proving we are the party that cares about a lot of the people who voted for Donald TrumpDonald TrumpFalse advertising: How the Democrats attempt to rewrite history OPINION | Democrats: Time to wish Hillary Clinton good luck and goodbye Judge upholds ,000 fine against Kobach for 'misleading' claims MORE.

By having some of Congress most established Democrats finally admit to the partys shortcomings in 2016, they are signaling that they are ready to move past some of last years deadweight in Democratic politics and pursue an agenda that benefits hardworking Americans.

Douglas E. Schoen (@DouglasESchoen)served as a pollster forPresident Bill Clinton. A longtime political consultant and pollster, he is also a Fox News contributor and the author of 11 books. His latest book isPutins Master Plan: To Destroy Europe, Divide NATO, and Restore Russian Power and Global Influence(Encounter, 2016).

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OPINION | Democrats: Time to wish Hillary Clinton good luck and goodbye - The Hill (blog)

The Arkansas bar association says it wont permanently strip Hillary Clinton of her ability to practice law in the state, rejecting requests to punish her for risking national security with her secret email server, and misleading Congress.

In a letter this week, the office of professional conduct at the Arkansas Supreme Court said two staff lawyers had looked into the complaints against Mrs. Clinton and concluded there does not appear to be a sufficient basis for a formal complaint.

He suggested that because the Obama Justice Department didnt pursue her, the state bar wouldnt either.

Though criminal charges are not required to pursue formal disciplinary proceedings, none were filed in this matter, Michael E. Harmon, deputy director of the office, said in a letter Monday to Ty Clevenger, the lawyer who tried to force the issue.

Mr. Clevenger had said that Mrs. Clinton committed both perjury and destruction of evidence over her email setup as State Department secretary. She deleted emails that contained government records, and misled Congress about the process, Mr. Clevenger said.

Mrs. Clintons law license has already been suspended by Arkansas for failure to comply with continuing legal education requirements, but Mr. Clevenger said she could reactivate her license by updating her credentials.

Hes been asking courts across the country where Mrs. Clinton had been admitted to take action against her.

Mr. Clevenger said he plans to file an appeal.

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Hillary skates again on email scandal - Washington Times

Russian politicians are up in arms over the freshly approved U.S. sanctions bill on Russia, warning of severe damage to ties with Washington and also taking swipes at the man they once hoped would loosen pressure on MoscowPresident Donald Trump.

This is a new stage of confrontation, Russian senator Alexey Pushkov wrote on Twitter Tuesday night. The law on new sanctions is approved. Trump will sign it, confirming that he is a hostage to Congress and anti-Russian hysteria.

Read More: Putin told to punish Poland as World War II row heats up

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The outspoken foreign policy commentator from Russian President Vladimir Putins United Russia party claimed Trump, who has repeatedly claimed he wants to get along with Moscow, now stood for the principles of his predecessor Barack Obama and his rival Hillary Clinton.

The sanctions bill on Russia, approved with near unanimous support in the House of Representatives seeks to give Congress, not the White House, the right to lift restrictive measures on doing business with companies close to the Kremlin. The measures have been in place since 2014, as punishment for Russias annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Congress approved the bill at a time when Trumps sympathies for Russia and his teams repeated contacts with Russian government-linked figures is causing mass suspicion in the U.S.

Trump is forced to carry out Obamas policy, being turned into H. Clinton, Pushkov wroteWednesday morning.

The sanctions bill has found momentum as U.S. politicians and the intelligence community agree that Russia attempted to interfere in last years presidential election that resulted in Trumps victory.

Russias reaction to the bill, if not symmetrical, should be painful for the Americans, Senator Konstantin Kosachev, head of the International Affairs Committee wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. After the Congress vote was published, which was heavily in favor of sanctions (419 for and three against), Kosachev concluded prospects for a warming of ties looked bleak.

Dialog will not happen, that will be so for a while. And President Trump will not handle his Congress, Kosachev said. Hope dies last but it is dying.

He accused the U.S. of not accepting its own election result, claiming the world's policeman now resembles a capricious child. To avoid isolation, he claimed Russian politicians will now seek council with EU nations, whose energy deals with Russia may be affected by a new provision in the sanctions bill.

Lets not be under any illusion, they will not be our allies, Kosachev said. but, for the sake of economic interests, he suggested at least a msalliance is possible.

Chances for a diplomatic breakthrough between Russia and the U.S. are now reduced to a severely low level, Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian lower houses International Affairs Committee told state news agency Itar-Tass. The same, anti-Russian flywheel, released under Obama, continues to crush all in its path.

Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov called for Russia to react without emotions, as he too lambasted the decision, without specifying any actual policy aims, .

What is happening [is] beyond the bounds of sound reason, Ryabkov told Tass on Wednesday.

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Russia Sanctions: Donald Trump is Hostage to Congress And Like Hillary Clinton, Moscow Says - Newsweek

Rev. Bill Shillady met President Bill and Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton for Easter brunch in April 2015, and from that point on he would lend his support during what became one of the most acrimonious presidential campaigns in American history. He offered to send her a devotion every day, and she agreed.

Each morning, he began sending words of encouragement and quotes from Scripture, sometimes based on the events of the previous days. He wrote them himself for three months; then enlisted the help of about 20 other clergy and laypeople who contributed devotions. Today, 365 of the over 600 devotions written for Clinton are collected in Strong For a Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Abingdon, Aug. 15).

She said that it was the first email she read every day, Shillady told PW. She often told me the devotions and prayers from many who supported her helped her get through the darkest times of the campaign.

Clinton, he noted, has roots in the Methodist church, attending Park Ridge United Methodist Church as a young person living in Illinois. Her Methodist roots go very deep, said the reverend. She is a person of faith and though she doesnt wear it on her sleeve, in my heart of hearts I know she is a true disciple of Christ.

Clinton first met Shillady at a 9/11 memorial in 2002. Later, with her daughter Chelsea, Clinton attended Park Avenue United Methodist Church, where Shillady was pastor on New Yorks Upper East Side. Both their friendship and the book came as a surprise to Shillady, who said he never planned on publishing the devotions written to Clinton.

I wrote the book because she encouraged me to, said Shillady, who is now CEO and executive director of the United Methodist City Society in NYC. Right after the election I had a long, poignant phone call with Secretary Clinton and she said the nation needed to read these.

She agreed to write the foreword, and Shillady approached Abingdon Press, the publishing arm of the United Methodist denomination.

This partnership made sense to everyone involved and we were thrilled to be part of this project, said Tamara Crabtree, executive director, marketing and sales for Abingdon Press.

Abingdon and public relations firm DVL Seigenthaler, hired to assist with national media, are targeting all major morning and evening shows on big networkssuch as CBS, ABC, and NBCas well as news channels such as CNN. They are also targeting news outlets such as NPR, the Washington Post, New York Times, the Atlantic and others for interviews with Shillady and other coverage.

The publisher is also in the process of securing coverage on major Christian outlets such as Sojourners and the Christian Century, as well as radio and television programs and podcasts, according to Crabtree.

Further, Abingdon is working closely with brick-and-mortar and online retailers, including Barnes & Noble. Were working with each retailerwhether indie stores, national chains, or online retailersto craft promotional packages and in-store displays based on their needs, she said.

A robust online and social media promotional campaign is also planned for the books release. We're reaching out to fan groups such as Pantsuit Nation and others [for review coverage and support] through online advertising and social media campaigns," she said, also mentioning Clinton's own Facebook page as a contact point.

Based on the response weve already received, were looking at a second print run, said Crabtree, who declined to reveal the initial print run. This is a strong book telling the story of the 2016 presidential campaign through the lens of faith.

According to Shillady, Strong for a Moment Like This provides both insight into Clintons life and hope for the future. Hillary Clinton is a very gracious person, though there is no doubt she was brokenhearted by the election, he said. What has helped is her faith, her family, and the love she feels from those 66 million people who voted for her. And shell continue to advocate for the marginalized.

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New Devotional Highlights Hillary Clinton's Spiritual Side - Publishers Weekly

The national political debate is consumed with allegations of collusion with a foreign government, playing dirty in the election and giving preferential treatment to family and friends.

Familiar charges, no doubt, but there is a twist: In each of these cases, President Trump and his allies are making the accusations, and their target is Hillary Clinton the Democrat vanquished in a presidential contest held nearly nine months ago.

For many Republicans, the 2016 election is still alive and well a go-to counterargument as Trumps agenda bogs down and questions multiply around the Trump campaigns possible improper contacts with Russian officials.

The latest example came Monday night when Trump, in an address to a Boy Scouts Jamboree in West Virginia, chided Clinton for not working hard enough in key Midwestern states that unexpectedly turned red on election night.

Do you remember that incredible night with the maps? Trump asked the Scouts.

(Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

Earlier in the day, taking to Twitter, Trump asked why investigators and his beleaguered attorney general, Jeff Sessions, arent looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?

In both public pronouncements and on social media, the president and his allies including the Republican National Committee are arguing, often with scant evidence, that Trumps former rival engaged in similar, if not worse, behavior. The mere mention of Clinton, who remains a reviled figure among Trumps core supporters, also serves as a reminder of how much worse they think things would be if she were in the Oval Office.

[Republicans are in full control of government but losing control of their party]

This certainly seems to be a preoccupation, and as far as I can tell, its unprecedented, said Doug Heye, a Republican consultant and former RNC communications director.

Trump, in many respects, has never stopped reliving last years election. He still makes frequent references to his triumph over Clinton, even in official White House speeches. In an interview last week with New York Times reporters, he quickly mentioned Clintons failure while first lady to help pass a comprehensive health-care bill.

From the podium of the White House briefing room, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has also tried to shift the focus to Clinton.

Look, I think if you want to talk about having relationships with Russia, Id look no further than the Clintons, she said, citing a speech former president Bill Clinton had given to a Russian bank, among other things.

More recently, the RNC has started making a habit of focusing on Clinton in research memos distributed to reporters, White House and Capitol Hill staffers, GOP party leaders and other Washington insiders.

One recent memo highlighted Clintons initial opposition to a set of Russian sanctions while secretary of state. Another detailed internal discussions among Clintons campaign staff brought to light in hacked emails about whether to make an issue during the primaries of fraud allegations related to the wife of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.).

Yet another highlighted opposition research done last year by a Democratic consultant regarding a leading Trump associate, allegedly with the assistance of the Ukrainian Embassy an exercise that Trump boosters have argued comes closer to collusion with a foreign government than anything proven about the Trump campaign.

Still another memo last week carried the subject header Hillary Clinton but was about another subject entirely: the governors race in Virginia. An RNC aide acknowledged that the use of Clintons name was an attempt to get more attention.

[Trump can usually make it about a third of the way through an interview without mentioning Hillary Clinton]

Republican operatives say Clinton remains fair game, even though she holds no government office and has given no indication that she plans to run for anything again. The Democrats are completely divided and without a leader, said RNC spokesman Michael Ahrens, adding that Clintons plans for a new advocacy group, Onward Together, shows she isnt trying to exit the political arena anytime soon.

Republican hands say some of the focus on Clinton is the result of her being in the headlines recently, including stories last week about an investigation that found the U.S. Postal Service engaged in violations of federal law by pressuring managers to approve letter carriers taking time off to campaign for Clinton last fall.

During the recent Group of 20 summit, Trump also referred to Clintons daughter, Chelsea, in a tweet after he caught flak for briefly turning over his seat to daughter Ivanka during a session with other world leaders. Claiming a double standard, Trump asserted that if the same thing had happened under a Hillary Clinton presidency, the Fake News would have cheered the move.

Undoubtedly, part of the reason that Clinton remains a popular target for Trump and his allies is that she remains a largely unpopular figure.

A Bloomberg News poll this month found 39 percent of Americans rating her favorably and 58percent unfavorably. That hasnt changed much since the election and is about where Trump stands: His favorable rating was 41 percent while his unfavorable rating was 55 percent in the same poll.

Among Republicans, Clinton is even more of an anathema. Only 11percent of Republicans viewed her favorably in a Gallup poll last month.

I dont know if theres some grand scheme here, Barry Bennett, a Republican operative who advised Trump during the general election campaign, said when asked about all the attention Clinton is still receiving. Shes a great motivator for our party. She makes Trump look popular.

[Sean Hannity provides a hospitable TV forum for embattled Donald Trump Jr.]

The focus on Clinton has also reverberated in conservative media, including on Fox News.

Before his recent exclusive interview with Donald Trump Jr. about his meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign, host Sean Hannity spent several minutes outlining unfavorable stories about Clinton and the Democrats, including the Ukrainian reporting. Saying much of the media was obsessed with coverage of the Trump campaigns alleged Russian connections, Hannity said: I pose this question to everybody in the media thats forced to tune in tonight: Which is worse?

More recently, Jesse Watters, another Fox News host, cited reports that the special counsel investigating Russia was expanding his probe into Trumps business dealings before he became president.

The fact that the Trump Organization is now allegedly being investigated and the Clinton Foundation is not really scares me, Watters said, referring to the charity run by the former president, first lady and their daughter.

The latest cover of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid, a publication with friendly ties to Trump, promised a world exclusive on the Russia scandal, alleging that HILLARY FRAMED DONALD TRUMP!

Democratic consultant Mary Anne Marsh said Trumps continued focus on Clinton appears to be part of a broader plan by the White House to play to the presidents base, which also includes plans to travel to Ohio on Tuesday for the latest in a series of campaign rallies in states he won.

Everything theyre doing is about keeping the base in place, because they know its going to get worse from here, Marsh said, referring to the multiple Russia probes. The Trump base loathes Hillary Clinton. Shes a great foil to muddy the waters on all these topics, whether its true or not.

Other presidents have cited their predecessors as a means of contrasting policy choices or pleading patience to turn around what was inherited.

President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies often talked about having to overcome the economic mess left by his predecessor, George W. Bush. And President Ronald Reagan and his team continued to talk about the malaise of Jimmy Carters presidency. But this dynamic is different, analysts say.

What is absolutely unprecedented is the focus on someone who wasnt president, who wasnt the incumbent, said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University. Trump knows his base hates Hillary Clinton. He reminds them of why they should hate Hillary Clinton. Its a way of making them feel good about the choice they made in November.

Heye, the Republican operative, said Trump and his team would be better served by talking up his agenda for the country.

Jesse Ferguson, a former Clinton campaign spokesman, said that with few major accomplishments to tout, Trump seems mired in the past.

Hes like the guy at work who cant talk about anything but his high school football glory days because he hasnt done anything with his life since, Ferguson said.

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Trump and the Republicans just can't stop running against Hillary Clinton - Washington Post