@polarisera I grew up thinking that this sort of thing was illegal, but clearly it's either legal or we're at the point where people just do it and we shrug and mouth platitudes, such as "I'm sure the government wouldn't steal from us, or lie to us or give jobs and money to their cronies, or I'm sure they know best because *science* or at least it's my team doing it and not the evil team."
I really think that some people will never see this utterly vile corruption because if they did their whole world view would come crashing down and they couldn't cope.