US government sues FOX TV

Now if only they would file suit against News Corp. for turning journalism into political propaganda, then perhaps we could start to clean up the news media.

Exactly lifestudentno83! Why is it only something with sexual content gets this administration offended?

At least they're seeing how crappy fox news is now.
it's just pathetic it had to reach this magnitude for a change.

FOX/Rupert Murdock have been piling on sex and violence for years now. This latest trend of disguising it as News makes me ill. The mindset appears to be, "If we place it in a certain context, like newsworthy, it's all good."
It takes a widespread effort on the part of everyone to make Corporate Media pay for it's exploitative excesses.
To live in America is to learn that nothing changes until everyone agrees on a need for change, no matter whether they agree on anything else.
Anyone who says to themselves, "Why bother complaining? No one listens anyway.", leaves the door wide open for more "Girls Gone Wild" meets "Jackass" programming.
I though that late night and cable was for this stuff. I guess that "Info-mercials" are still cheaper to glutton the airwaves.

Funny, I thought FOX networks were an official Government institution?! I guess dog bites dog !

How has the mess that is now television happened? Maybe we should investigate to see what laws were changed to make what we now call television possible? The news is a bad joke, the programs are disgusting. Why? It appears the networks are trying to appeal to the lowest intelligence, most perverted audience.

I think this is interesting and obviously a frivolous sum of money to pay. It's a little too convenient for a right wing administration too bring to light a right wing network which isn't doing that well. Clearly it is an attempt to get attention for the network. And, like some of you have mentioned, sex sells. Or am I just paranoid

Oh pulllleeeeez. Doesn't the FCC have bigger fish to fry? I don't like that kind of programming - so I don't watch it, but somebody may. If it's the kids folks are worried about - kids can find porn on the internet.

This is the 21st century, right?

patsarts, The problem is the FCC isn't frying any fish. That's the reason television isn't worth watching. Yes, this is the twenty-first century and television has evolved into garbage. It wasn't always this way. Maybe it's because we can't have beer commercials? Instead we get for hour erection Viagra commercials.

Is this the first in a long line of money grubbing tactics the gov't is cooking up? anything to get more money to fund whatever it is washington is funding these days.

I don't know about you guys but I hate being titillated.

devo64, You don't belong to the group they are aiming at.

If you mean a FOX viewer then your right. 99% of television is doing nothing but dumbing down a generation and shows like this are proof of that. Frankly I don't see really what the big hoopla is all about. If you go to other countries around the world something like this wouldn't be considered outrageous. Do you think that's a testament to our morals or to our hidebound ways?

Damn! This infuriates me and those dullards and Nascar Patriots and Bush-backers who don't understand its implications are just as bad.

Just like every other one of Bush's corporately-staffed regulatory agencies, the fines are a joke.

In Texas, former Attorney General and now Bush zombie, Senator John Cornyn, once fined an insurance mega corporation $50,000 which amounted to a tiny fraction of what they made cheating people in the first place.

Just like in the Fox case, the insurance fine levied by Bush's puppet Attorney General in Texas amounted to an amount that equaled only 12 SECONDS of revenue and it was just for the Texas division of that mega insurance company.

All this amounts to is a way for the Bush foxes who are guarding the hen house to claim they are being tough on corporate wrongdoing.

As long as K Street exists and regulatory agencies are staffed by loyal Republican "Big Business Right or Wrong" corporate operatives, we'll continue to see our rights abolished and corporate thievery and perversion that is must have to survive rewarded.

Then, on top of all that, even if we get rid of regulatory cronyism, we'll have Republican-style judicial activism that will still overturn even piddling verdicts like this scam by the FCC. Only a dishonest and corrupt regulatory entity like the FCC would fine ONLY the stations who had formal complaints against them.

How stupid must we be to allow the FCC to (1) count the complaints and (2) to decide to fine violators based on that questionable count of complaints rather than fining ALL the actual stations KNOWN to have violated regulatory rules.

How Fascist and Neo-Conservative must our regulatory bodies be allowed to become before we do something about them?

We should start with gutting the government of those industry-bribed politicians who appoint dishonest regulators or ones who came from the lobbying side of that dynamic. (Bush actually appointed an industry operative that had lobbied on behalf of serial polluters as the second in command at the EPA!!!!)

We should then rid our country of the hired lobbyists who actually push through the watered-down regulations by persuading regulators who are already sympathetic to their causes to fill their clients' deregulation wish lists.

After that, we should fine the industries that pay those lobbyists and regulators to make their ridiculous rulings and clean out the rat's nest they've made of our regulatory bodies..

Lastly, we should expunge the industry operatives from the judicial system by changing the rules about who can be appointed to the bench.

Even if we have to go to three judge panels to combat fascist-style judicial activism, consumer and citizen legal advocates should outweigh any loading of the courts in favor of big monied interests.

Seating plutocratic sympathizers on appellate and higher court benches assures that even companies that recklessly ignore the already overly-lenient rules in place are still let off with a not guilty verdict or nothing more serious than a token penalty.

We should be OUTRAGED!

$56k? That's a freakin' drop in the bucket for these Network tycoons. What they need to do is get an investigation going on the 2000 presidential election results when Fox was the first Network to declare Bush as the winnner! But we all know that won't happen anytime soon.....Infouilwell, like they say, IF YOUR NOT OUTRAGED, YOUR NOT PAYING ATTENTION!!

Finally, something needs to be done about FOX.

That amount of money is not even a pimple on the butt of FOX. It is a joke intended to impress us not punish them.