Corruption and collusion

Modern journalists have little in common with those I was privileged to know when I was a copyboy at NBC News in Washington in the 1960s.

Today’s “journalists” will disagree, but as numerous surveys have shown, the public trust in the mainstream media has sunk to an all-time low. Only the media think they don’t have to change and can continue to sell a product increasing numbers of people aren’t buying.

WikiLeaks dumps of emails within the Hillary Clinton campaign and between the campaign and reporters should contain enough proof for any reasonable person that big media is in the tank for her.

In what may be unprecedented, The New York Times allowed Clinton to edit her own quotes.

John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC, showered praise on Clinton in emails to her campaign chief John Podesta.

Clinton staffers discussed which emails to release and which to delete. She has claimed the deleted emails were personal, not work related.

In what may be unprecedented, The New York Times allowed Clinton to edit her own quotes.

The WikiLeaks documents also expose Clinton’s private vs. public contradictory statements on several subjects.

The Washington Examiner reports these include transcripts of paid speeches she has tried to keep secret. Three years ago, Clinton told an audience at a luncheon for a Jewish charity that the flow of Syrian refugees into Jordan had put Jordan’s security at risk.

About the thousands of Syrians pouring into Jordan, she said, “… they can’t possibly vet all those refugees so they don’t know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.”

She wants to increase the number of Syrian refugees entering the United States by many times the current rate. If they pose a security threat to Jordan, why wouldn’t they pose a threat to America? Even FBI Director James Comey says he can’t guarantee proper vetting for so many refugees and other immigrants, many of whom lack the most rudimentary forms of identification and verifiable work history.

During the second presidential debate, Clinton expressed support for a no-fly zone over parts of Syria to help stem the humanitarian crisis. But, in a paid speech for Goldman Sachs in June 2013, she indicated she was skeptical about whether such a strategy would work.

“To have a no-fly zone,” she said then, “you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas, so our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk—you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians. So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.”

There is much more, including private praise for Wall Street and big banks that paid her six figures for speeches.

The mainstream media has widely downplayed—or even ignored the revelations brought to light through the leaked documents. But in the third and final debate on Wednesday, Donald Trump will get a chance to do what the political press has largely refused to do: press Hillary Clinton on her many contradictions. And if he’s smart, that's exactly what he’ll do.