Yes, they are crooked. If you don't realize this yet you're young or stupid.
Let's start with Congress, and then trickle down to other government employees.
And no, they're not crooked, the system that allows for this to happen is.
That's what crooked means. Not just corrupt.
I don't care if everyone can insider trade or nobody can but we should at least be consistent about it.
Or engaging in an ever-complicated web of motivated reasoning and mental gymnastics in a vain attempt to shore up the falsehoods that underpin their world view.
Watching people try and act like these organizations do not harbor evil and malfeasance in quantities that would be outrageous in any other context reminds me of how the "the world is the center of the universe" model had to get more and more complicated to explain away ever increasing observations that seemed to contradict it.