Tag: advertising

Indiana Lawmakers Weigh Widespread Ban On All Marijuana Advertising, Not Just On Billboards

Indiana lawmakers could ban all marijuana advertising within state lines under an amendment adopted Monday in a transportation-focused committee. It goes beyond the billboard-specific prohibition taken in a Senate panel last week.

Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie) said his community is “inundated” with billboards advertising illegal marijuana. The district is near Michigan, which has legalized it.

But that’s not all.

“My constituents, myself included, receive up to two—what would look like political mailers—a week advertising an illegal substance” at dispensaries in nearby New Buffalo, per Pressel. He chairs the House Roads and Transportation Committee.

He commandeered Senate Bill 73, dealing with utility trailer sales, for an amendment outlawing the advertising of marijuana and other drugs on Indiana’s list of Schedule I controlled substances. Indiana’s attorney general could sue for injunctions, civil penalties of up to $15,000 and “reasonable costs” incurred throughout the investigation and lawsuit.

“I’ve heard about [how] the First Amendment, I’m trampling on it. I don’t believe that to be true,” Pressel told the committee. He cited a federal appeals court decision that, “basically, if it’s a criminal activity, you have no First Amendment right to advertise. That’s my understanding.”

The ban would take effect upon the bill’s passage. Advertising from contracts entered into or renewed before the approval date would be exempt.

The committee accepted the edits by consent.

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Indiana Lawmakers Approve Bill To Ban Marijuana Advertising On Billboards

Tuesday discussion around a Bureau of Motor Vehicle (BMV) bill descended into impassioned debate over marijuana advertising, which Republican lawmakers said should be restricted.

In contention was House Bill 1390, authored by Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie). The underlying legislation originally just dealt with BMV agency matters, like insurance verification, specialty license plates and registration stickers.

But among multiple changes adopted by the Senate Homeland Security and Transportation Committee on Tuesday—including a significant amendment addressing “predatory” towing—was a ban on “outdoor” marijuana advertising, notably on highway billboards.

Specifically, the amended bill language seeks to prohibit outdoor advertisements for products containing marijuana or a variety of other controlled substances, including heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

The bill now moves to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Pressel, whose district extends to Indiana’s northern border, described “billboards all over the place that say, ‘Come to my store and buy this,’” referencing dispensaries in Michigan, where recreational marijuana is legal.

“And we have trucks—mobile billboards—that drive around and sit in front of our parks. That’s unacceptable, and it sends a mixed message to the consumer that this product is legal in Indiana, which it is not,” said Pressel, who unsuccessfully attempted to add the provision to a separate House bill earlier in the session.

“I think that’s an unfair message,” he continued, “and I believe that we should get in front of this to say that if it’s an illegal substance, listed on our illegal substance list in the state of Indiana, you should not be able to advertise for that.”

Multiple advertisers pushed back.

Ron Breymier, executive director of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Indiana, cited First Amendment issues. He argued that policymakers can dictate the size and placement of billboards, but “not the actual advertisement itself.”

Phones and internet searches, Breymier said, are a “greater threat” than billboards.

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Elon Wins Again: Advertisers Who Boycotted X Have Returned

Remember when major companies including Disney pulled their advertising from X after Elon Musk took over, and then Elon told them to go fuck themselves?

Well, they’ve come crawling back.

Musk is suing Soros funded rabid leftist organisation Media Matters for suggesting that the ads were appearing next to “hate speech.”

In the meantime it appears that the huge companies involved have finally realised that shutting off their reach to half the planet on the world’s biggest platform isn’t the smartest of ideas.

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Kamala Harris Caught Red-Handed Running Contradictory Ads to Try and Win Both Jewish and Arab Voters – Pro Israel Ads in Pennsylvania – Pro Gaza Ads in Michigan

Kamala Harris got caught running contradictory ads to win over both Jewish and Arab voters.

Arab voters in Dearborn, Michigan are voting for President Trump. Arabs are supporting Trump because they believe he will bring peace to the Middle East.

Muslim protestors have been heckling Kamala Harris at her rallies over the Biden Regime’s support for Israel.

Harris may lose Michigan due to opposition from Muslim voters.

Pennsylvania’s Jewish voters could also decide the crucial battleground state.

Kamala Harris is so desperate to win the Arab and Jewish vote amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war that she is running contradictory ads.

According to CNN: The Pennsylvania ads highlight Kamala’s ‘support’ for Israel’s “ability to defend itself,” and Michigan ads say “she will not be silent” about Gaza.

“Facebook advertisements aimed at voters in Pennsylvania play a video of her speech at the Democratic National Committee on defending Israel — but sliced together two sections by omitting the part where she talks about the suffering in Gaza,” CNN reported.

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When Did Google Search Become Totally Useless?

When Google launched in the late 1990s, it quickly overtook the market for search engines. Its proprietary method of indexing led users to results they were actually looking for rather than producing the hodgepodge of results offered by other search engines of the time. Within just a few years, it was dominating the market. Today, it is a money-printing machine.

It’s also increasingly horrible at the core mission that produced such success. The company’s leadership may have realized early on that to dominate they needed to maximize the marketing angle of search, but over time that side of the business — the one that produces revenue — swallowed the informative results that drove the search engine’s success.

Now, Google’s true product, its users, are drowning in a sea of partisan slop and sponsored content rather than getting the results we’re looking for when we take to the World Wide Web. By doing so, Google is making it pointless for us to continue to allow ourselves to be the product.

Let’s say you have an artistic daughter who wants some oil paints for Christmas, but you’re unsure about which brand to buy or even what the definition of oil paint is. You head over to Google and type in “oil paint.” Is your first result a definition or even the Wikipedia page? Nope, it’s ads. You have to scroll to get to Wikipedia.

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‘It’s the First Amendment, Stupid’: Federal Judge Slams Florida for Threatening TV Stations

Floridians this fall will vote on a constitutional “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.” So authorities decided to interfere with free speech in an attempt to thwart voters from limiting the government’s right to interfere in reproductive decisions. The state threatened TV stations with criminal penalties for running an ad supporting the abortion initiative (known as Amendment 4).

A federal judge isn’t impressed. “To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” wrote U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker in an October 17 opinion.

Walker temporarily enjoined Florida from attempting to censor the ad, granting the temporary restraining order request sought by Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group sponsoring Amendment 4.

“Importantly, this is a temporary restraining order, which is not generally appealable,” noted legal writer Chris Gender, author of the Law Dork newsletter, on BlueSky. “The preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for Oct.. 29, and the state could appeal from that.”

Florida has been pulling out all the stops to try and stop Amendment 4 from passing. The state has been using taxpayer money to run ads in opposition to the amendment while trying to prohibit people from seeing an ad in support of it.

The ad in question is “political speech—speech at the core of the First Amendment,” notes Judge Walker. “And just this year, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the bedrock principle that the government cannot do indirectly what it cannot do directly by threatening third parties with legal sanctions to censor speech it disfavors. The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is ‘false.'”

This is the rub of the state’s argument against Floridians Protecting Freedom’s ad. It features a woman called Caroline who was diagnosed with brain cancer while pregnant with her second child. “The doctors knew that if I did not end my pregnancy, I would lose my baby, I would lose my life, and my daughter would lose her mom,” she says. “Florida has now banned abortion, even in cases like mine,” she ads.

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Heinz Pulls Two ‘Racist’ Ads After Backlash

In a world where everything is racist, you can’t have a black person in an ad for tomato ketchup without legions of snowflakes complaining it perpetuates negative stereotypes and demanding that it be cancelled.

Ketchup kings Heinz folded like a soggy burger bun when they became the target of the angry puritan mob, pulling not one but two adverts after some complaints, likely mostly from white people with deep set guilt complexes.

The first ad, for a ‘family size’ pasta sauce, appeared on the London Underground and depicted a black woman getting married to a white man, with family members also in the picture.

At the meal they are eating the pasta with the sauce.

Seems diverse, right? Wrong.

Because there is no ‘black father’ present it’s actually deeply racist… or something.

It’s “shocking” that there are only two black people(?) out of five in the ad.

The lighter skinned people are looking at the black girl stuffing her face with pasta in a disparaging way, so it’s even more racist… or something.

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Florida Senator Sues State Over Anti-Marijuana Ad, Alleging Unconstitutional Use Of Taxpayer Dollars Ahead Of Legalization Vote

A Florida Democratic senator is suing the state for using taxpayer dollars to fund a recent ad that he says unconstitutionally attempts to influence voters to oppose a marijuana legalization initiative that will be on the ballot next month.

Sen. Jason Pizzo (D), who is expected to run for governor in 2026, announced on Friday that he would be seeking an injunction against the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) over the ad, which warns against driving under the influence of cannabis and then makes a contested claim that “DUI crashes increase in states with legalized marijuana, putting everyone at risk.”

Making such an assertion in an ad supported by tax dollars amounts to “political messaging” and therefore represents an unconstitutional use of appropriations authority, the senator says. The campaign behind the Florida legalization initiative has also sent cease and desist letters to 54 TV stations that have aired the public service announcement.

“For years, our state has wasted precious time, and many millions, peddling divisive and unproductive nonsense, while flouting practical solutions for critical needs,” Pizzo said.

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Kamala campaign BUSTED for taking out Google ads with FAKE headlines to deceive voters into believing positive coverage

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has been making fake news headlines for Google search ads for readers to believe more positive coverage of the Democrat nominee. According to a report from Axios, the Harris campaign has been buying Google search ads with fake headlines to make it appear as though news outlets are giving glowing coverage for Harris. The Trump-Vance campaign is not running these types of ads.  

The deceptive advertisements can be seen on the Harris for President Google Ads Center that look like news reports, but with fake headlines. One example from the UK Independent states, “VP Harris Protects Democracy – Trump Defends Jan 6 Comments.” 

The ad has the sponsorship label, and is paid for by the Harris for President campaign. Other news outlets whose brands were being used in this way included NPR, the AP, The Guardian, USA Today, PBS, CNN, CBS News, Time and others. 

Axios reported, “An ad featuring a link to an NPR story reads, ‘Harris Will Lower Health Costs,’ with supporting text that says, ‘Kamala Harris will lower the cost of high-quality affordable health care.'”

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The GARMs Race: The House Moves Forward With its Investigation of Blacklisting Company

We have been discussing media rating systems being used to target advertisers and revenue sources for certain cites and companies. NewsGuard and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) have been criticized as the most sophisticated components of a modern blacklisting system targeting conservative or dissenting voices. I recently had a series of exchanges with NewsGuard after a critical column.  Now, the House Judiciary Committee under Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is moving forward in demanding documents and records from leading companies utilizing the GARM system, a company that I have previously criticized. It is a welcomed effort for anyone who is concerned over the use of these blacklisting systems to curtail free speech. However, time is of the essence.

The demand to preserve evidence went to various companies, including Adidas, American Express, Bayer, BP, Carhartt, Chanel, CVS and General Motors.

In my new book, I discuss the rating systems as a new and insidious form of blacklisting. Notably, Elon Musk has now filed a lawsuit against GARM and may be able to get more evidence out in discovery on the operations of this outfit.

It is an effort to strangle the financial life out of sites by targeting their donors and advertisers.  This is where the left has excelled beyond anything that has come before in speech crackdowns.

Years ago, I wrote about the Biden administration supporting efforts like the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. That included Reason.org and a group of libertarian and conservative law professors who simply write about cases and legal controversies. GDI warned advertisers against “financially supporting disinformation online.” At the same time, HuffPost, a far-left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.

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