Free Republic

President Donald Trump has delivered another blow in his ongoing battle with the pharma industry, signing a memorandum on Tuesday that directs the FDA to rein in direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising.The initiative, which has long been a priority for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is designed to roll back a 1997 policy shift that gave drugmakers a greater ability to advertise their products on television by relaxing the requirements on the information they must reveal about a treatment’s side effects.In his directive, Trump cited the power of the FDA—vested by Congress in 1962—to regulate drug...

The European Commission on Friday fined Google €2.95 billion for abusing its dominant position in the advertising technology industry. This decision comes amid serious trade tensions with the US administration over tech regulation. The EU antitrust enforcer on Friday walloped US tech giant Google with a €2.95 billion fine for self-preferencing its ad exchange tool “AdX”, while dominating the market with its publisher ad server and its ad buying tools. “Google must now come forward with a serious remedy to address its conflicts of interest, and if it fails to do so, we will not hesitate to impose strong remedies,”...

I received such an outpouring of comments to my recent bad T.V. and cable ads article that I thought I’d give this another shot. Currently, there are so many bad ads I had no problem finding truly dreadful examples. First, let’s check out an ad campaign that worked, American Eagle’s ads featuring Sydney Sweeney, a popular young Hollywood actress. Apparently, she not only has good genes, but good jeans. SNIP Moving away from never-fail cheesecake ads, there is another new Orange advertiser. Yes, Orange is indeed the new orange. Why this remains so is beyond me. There is no study...

President Donald Trump’s top consumer protection and antitrust official has approved a massive $13.5 billion merger that will reshape the advertising industry, effectively putting the final nail in the coffin of coordination against outlets based on their political viewpoints. The Federal Trade Commission announced Monday morning that it has decided not to block a merger between Omnicom and IPG, two rival firms which together make up a third of the world’s “Big Six” advertising agencies. But rather than rubber stamp the deal, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson extracted a major concession: the firms have agreed to cease all coordination related to...

‘Kids Don’t Need To Be Drinking These’ – Kawhi Leonard Takes a Dig at Popular Drink Brand April 25, 2025 | 7:51 PM EDT The Los Angeles Clippers took care of business with a 117-84 win in Intuit Dome’s first-ever playoff game. Kawhi Leonard posted a double-double, notching 21 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists in the Clippers 34-point rout over the Denver Nuggets. During Kawhi’s postgame press conference, he seemed to take a subtle jab at an iconic sports drink. Kawhi Leonard Takes a Shot at Gatorade, an NBA Sponsor Gatorade has made a name for itself in the...

The left-wing cofounder of a group that received gushing coverage for its efforts to “defund” conservative media will step away from the advocacy organization at the end of next month, The Post can reveal, following a legal challenge and attempts to rebrand in the wake of President Trump’s return to the White House. Nandini Jammi — whose Check My Ads Institute seeks to yank advertiser funding from right-wing figures and outlets purportedly spreading “disinformation” — announced on her LinkedIn “with enormous pride” that she was “stepping down.” The move comes on the heels of a funding shortfall amid impending legal...

Armslist is a national advertising medium for gun and accessories sales. It is much like Craigslist but focused on guns. AmmoLand was able to have an extended conversation with the owner and founder of Armslist, Jon Gibbon. Jon came up with the idea for Armslist when he saw how little gun stores were offering customers for used guns when he was a college student. Because many online advertising platforms discriminate against firearms advertising and sales, Gibbon believed a platform that featured advertising for firearms and accessories could make money. The economies of scale and the intrinsic efficiency of using digital...

YouTube, once a haven for video enthusiasts, has become a platform overrun with advertisements. It’s not uncommon for users to encounter multiple ads before, during, and after their desired video content. This begs the question: what’s driving the proliferation of ads on YouTube? YouTube’s primary revenue stream is through its Partner Program, which allows content creators to monetize their videos through advertisements. The platform takes a 45% cut of the ad revenue, while the creator receives 55%. This model has proven to be incredibly lucrative, with top YouTubers earning millions of dollars annually. However, this revenue-sharing model has created an...

Best copy available of this classic commercial featuring Ken and Barbie with GI Joe type dolls in a Nissan commercial. Featuring Van Halen's performance of the Rock and Roll classic song "You Really Got ME" (  • Van Halen - You Really... ), originally from The Kinks (  • Video The man at the end is the recreation of the man who brought Nissan (then Datsun including the original 240Z) to America; Yutaka Katayama. Watch the second version at  • Nissan Toys 2 Barbie a... .

Walgreens Boots Alliance, the parent company of British retailer Boots, has seen its stock decline during a turbulent week after facing backlash over its allegedly "woke" Christmas advert. The stock closed Friday at $8.48, down 3.75 percent from Thursday, continuing a broader downward trend. Walgreens-Boots shares are down 66 percent over the past year and trading at their lowest since 1996. Last week, Boots stirred conservative anger after releasing its Christmas commercial featuring actor Adjoa Andoh as Mrs. Claus and a scene referencing gender-inclusive pronouns, where Mrs. Claus uses they/them pronouns when referring to one gift recipient. Newsweek has contacted...

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday, appeared in a corporate advertisement for BlackRock, according to Reuters. The asset manager ran an advertisement in 2022 that featured a teacher from Bethel Park High School as well as several unpaid students. One of these students was Crooks, BlackRock told Reuters in an emailed statement Sunday. “In 2022, we ran an ad featuring a teacher from Bethel Park High School, in which several unpaid students briefly appeared in the background, including Thomas Matthew Crooks,” the company said. BlackRock went on to condemn the assassination...

There are plenty of good web browsers to use, and Firefox and its Waterfox spinoff, most of the time, are good. But I noticed something the other day about both of them. I was trying to log onto this Conservative shopping site called “Patriot Depot”, and when I would put the web address in, it would automatically re-direct to Google. This was true for both of them. I tried this with my other browsers, and the site came on just fine with them. Perhaps some lefty programmer at Firefox put a re-direct as a practical joke. If true, given that...

Global Telecommunications company C Spire has yanked all of its advertising from the Paris Olympics after the opening ceremony mocked Christianity in its reenactment of the Last Supper using drag queens. C Spire, the sixth-largest wireless provider in the United States, has now removed all of its advertising dollars from the event.

C Spire, one of the largest corporations in Mississippi, announced they will be pulling advertising from the summer Olympic games. This move comes after a controversial moment in Friday night's opening ceremony that included a scene featuring drag queens that seemingly evoked the famous Italian painting of Jesus Christ of his apostles.

Sometimes people do things that have extreme spiritual significance without even realizing it. When I watched Jonathan Cahn’s latest video on Tuesday, I knew that I had to write about what just happened in New York City. From June 16th through June 19th, a 270 foot dragon was wrapped around the Empire State Building. In addition, giant banners that featured dragons with the ominous message “All Must Choose” were draped over iconic landmarks all over the Big Apple, and restaurants throughout the city were featuring dragon-themed menu items. All of this was being done to promote the second season of...

Volokh: The order came down today; it noted that no judge called for a vote on the en banc rehearing petition. Here's my post on the panel decision, from September. From Junior Sports Magazines, Inc. v. Bonta, decided today [Sept, 13, 2023] by Ninth Circuit Judge Kenneth Lee, joined by Judges Randy Smith and Lawrence VanDyke: "This case is not about whether children can buy firearms. (They cannot under California law.) Nor is this case about whether minors can legally use firearms. (California allows minors under adult supervision to possess and use firearms for hunting, target practice, and other activities.)...

The commercial "What Does the Data Say?" from Monday dot com has three actors: - an older black male - a white female - a white male. If you've been watching TV ads over the last few years, can't you basically write the script? 999 chances out of 1000 you'd get it 100% correct. The older black male is the boss, the white female is a super-competent employee, and the white male is an incompetent doofus that the other two mock. No company would ever have the black male or the white female as the doofus: it's almost always a...

Walmart said Friday it is not advertising on social media platform X, one of the latest major companies to say it has dropped the Elon Musk-owned site. “We aren’t advertising on X as we’ve found other platforms to better reach our customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said

A few updates: I will appear on Faux News's "The Korean War" special with Brett Baier, Sunday night, May 28, 10:00. I know may of you are boycotting FAUX, and I respect that. Did this for an old filmmaking friend. Also, I have begun a MWF youtube show "Patriot's History," where I just read through "A Patriot's History of the United States" at 12 noon EST on the Wild World of History channel. Just started the Revolutionary War. We are 24 episodes in, all in the video archives. We are working to make "Patriot's History" in to a "John Adams/Sons...

A new San Francisco political group is launching an ad campaign sure to get attention: a series of pastel-colored ads joking about the city’s response to the fentanyl crisis, tied together by the jaunty slogan, “That’s Fentalife!" This week, the ads will appear in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, the two places where overdose deaths have been the most prevalent. The group responsible — TogetherSF Action — is insistent that the ads aren't insensitive to the hundreds of people who have died from drug overdoses in the city and that the “That’s Fentalife” moniker on the ads comes...