FEC Chair To ‘Daily Show’: Agency Is ‘Enormously Dysfunctional’ (VIDEO)

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Federal Election Commission Commissioner Ann M. Ravel told “The Daily Show” on Thursday’s episode that the FEC is “enormously dysfunctional” and compared the agency’s effectiveness to men’s nipples.

“The FEC — which is supposed to be enforcing campaign finance laws so people have trust in the system — isn’t. I would say that it is enormously dysfunctional at the FEC,” Ravel told correspondent Jordan Klepper. “I’m the chair of the Federal Election Commission.”

Ravel was nominated by President Barack Obama in June 2013 and unanimously approved by the Senate in October 2013.

Klepper wanted to give a “realistic picture of the effectiveness of their regulatory bodies”: “Would you say the FEC is more or less useless than men’s nipples?”

Ravel’s answer was disheartening, according to Klepper.

“I would say that the FEC and men’s nipples are probably comparable. There are things that are done that have some value, just like men’s nipples,” Ravel answered.

“God help us all,” Klepper said.

Watch the clip, from Comedy Central, below:

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Notable Replies

  1. "I would say that the FEC and men’s nipples are probably comparable.¨

    That is a wonderful, and sad, analogy.

  2. Avatar for chammy chammy says:

    Why can’t they fix it?

  3. IIRC, the FEC has an equal number of Dems and Pukes, and it requires a majority vote to move ahead on campaign finance issues. Obviously partisanship trumps (aaakk!) good governance. If they do move forward, their fines are miniscule, and usually come years after the campaigns, successful or not, are over. Either way, there’s no entity to collect those fines from.

    Our broken system of government by oligarchs hard at not working.

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