Good post... all of it.
Here's the big problem that I see in getting to the actual first-hand facts of the systemic corruption:
1) The shear massive scale and scope of the operations are almost impossible to comprehend, even for the enlightened.
2) Rats control the congress and executive branches.
3) Rats are criminals and don't play by the rules. They're experts at avoiding prosecution and have been working for decades, overtly and covertly/underground, to establish the perfect economic and political environment to spring their traps (like Obozocare where they gain unfettered access to all of your sensitive financial and health-related info, and more so, have the power of better health, or life and death over critically ill people).
4) Republicans are blocked from formal investigative proceedings, plus they don't have the backbone to rock the boat.
5) The government insiders that can tell us the real story currently have an exceptional thing going. Career government employees are now making double the compensation of private sector employees and it's next to impossible to be terminated. With real unemployment at +17%, it's not a great time for these tenured gov bureaucrats - who don't have to stress about market competition, productivity, or profits, they get raises every year, and have outlandish benefits/pensions - to take a principled stand to save our Republic. If you listen to this DOJ lawyer, he admitted that he had a great gig and it wasn't until the word came down that whites have no civil rights under Holder, and the appointees were willing to muzzle staff and purger themselves to pursue political gains - that he finally had enough.
Rome found this out - eventually, when enough people do not have a stake in paying for lawful national services, it becomes a death spiral downward if those people are given the chance to vote for unscrupulous politicians who want power over people. With parasites voting in ever greater numbers to use the government to take what is not theirs from those who "have", so they don't have to think, sweat, or risk anything they have based on their own merit - the parasites in both private and public sectors overwhelm the producers and the system collapses.
This is where we stand.