A group called the Committee for Truth in Politics (CTP) is running ads in selected states opposing the "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act," which would overhaul the country's financial sector, more tightly regulate consumer financial products like home mortgages, car loans and credit cards, and help prevent another Wall Street meltdown. CTP has no Web site and refuses to disclose any information about its spending to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The organization was created by a North Carolina Republican operative named William L. "Bill" Peaslee, and it is represented by attorney James Bopp, Jr., who has sued the FEC saying the group shouldn't have to file any spending reports with the government. Bopp is the same person who drafted the Republican National Committee's "Purity Resolution," which threatens to cut off funding for any Republican who fails to support a list of far-right conservative values and beliefs. CTP is running its ads in Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The ads are aimed at confusing people by portraying the financial reform bill as a "new $4 trillion bailout for banks" -- language that was suggested by discredited GOP pollster and wordsmith Frank Luntz, who recently urged Republicans to stoke opposition to the consumer-friendly legislation by portraying it as filled with bank bailouts, lobbyist loopholes and additional layers of complicated government bureaucracy.

The political race between two doctors duking it out for the elective office of Parish Coroner in New Orleans has resulted in arguably the weirdest political campaign ad in history. The incumbent is Dr. Frank Minyard, who is running for a tenth term after serving 36 years in the office, and the challenger is Dr. Dwight McKenna, a convicted tax evader who spent nine months in federal prison for underreporting his income by $367,000 in 1992. Dr. McKenna has launched a campaign ad against Dr. Minyard that highlights a mini-scandal that occurred in the 1990s, after Minyard was sued for allegedly removing pieces of bone and corneas from bodies and sending them to transplant centers without permission. The ad portrays Dr. Minyard as a mad, Frankenstein-style doctor in surgeon's garb, complete with a bloody hand-print on the back of his white coat. He and his assistant, Igor, hover ghoulishly over a dead body that bears a toe tag that says "DOA" on one side and "For Sale" on the other. Dr. Minyard carelessly waves around what looks like a rubbery calf's liver, and tells Igor that they need to retrieve a heart, a spleen and a liver "for tonight's sale." Igor sneers, "Ye-s-s-s, Dr. Minyard," and a deep voice-over intones, "Say NO to Dr. Minyard, and YES to Dr. McKenna."

Smoke Free Movies, a project that aims to "reduce the U.S. film industry's usefulness to Big Tobacco's domestic and global marketing" has started running advertisements in the Hollywood Reporter and Variety about the movie Avatar. The ads state that,

For every $100 million it earns at the box office, Avatar ... will deliver an estimated forty million tobacco impressions to theater audiences. By the time it reaches Blu-Ray, VOD and broadband, Avatar's smoking scenes could be worth the equivalent of $50 million in broadcast cigarette ads. Of course, the United States outlawed cigarette commercials forty years ago. Did Big Tobacco pay for this? Taxpayers did. ... Avatar's tobacco imagery scored $30 million in public subsidies, according to the L.A. Times. The public is not only charged for 3D glasses to watch tobacco promotion, it pays for it again at tax time.

The information about taxpayers subsidizing smoking in big-screen movies comes from a November, 2009 report by the University of California San Francisco titled "Taxpayer Subsidies for US Films with Tobacco Imagery" that examined taxpayer subsidies for youth-rated films (G, PG and PG-13). The study revealed that 41 U.S. states compete for film projects by offering taxpayer-funded, public subsidies to motion picture producers, and that in 2008, states picked up about one quarter of total film production costs. The paper estimated that 62 percent of state film subsidies go to films that portray smoking. Studies show that there is more smoking in movies now than ever before, and that smoking in movies does, in fact, encourage kids to smoke.

The Federal Reserve Bank is on the hot seat for failing to protect consumers from unscrupulous mortgage lenders, failing to predict or prevent the financial crisis, and its involvement in the multi-billion-dollar, 2008 taxpayer-funded bailouts, making this a great time to run an ad campaign to try and burnish its image. As the time nears for Congress to consider legislation to rein in the country's financial sector, the Fed started running 45-second public service announcements in movie theaters throughout the U.S. urging viewers to use their credit cards wisely. Amid jazzy music, an announcer asks, "Want to use your credit card wisely? Here are some tips you can trust from the Federal Reserve." The announcer suggests things like paying your bill on time, staying below your credit limit and watching for changes in the terms of your account. Rocky Vega of the Daily Reckoning points out the hypocrisy of the Fed urging the responsible use of credit, saying the Fed "has been on a spending spree in the trillions of dollars, with seemingly little concern about the debt being accrued." The timing of the ads could also help improve the Fed's image just as its Chairman, Ben Bernanke, faces hearings to consider his nomination for a second term.

California's First District Court of Appeals ruled unanimously to uphold a $2.85 million damage award against Philip Morris (PM) and R.J. Reynolds (RJR) in the case of Leslie Whiteley, a deceased woman from Ojai, California, who developed terminal, metastatic lung cancer at age 40. Whiteley had testified that she started smoking at age 13, using her lunch money to buy cigarettes, and that as a youth she disregarded the health warning labels on cigarette packs because tobacco companies promoted the benefits of smoking and the government allowed their sale. The tobacco companies argued that they weren't responsible for statements made by their trade group, the Tobacco Institute, during the 1970s and 1980s that scientific research was inconclusive about the dangers of smoking. The Court said that Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds were among the tobacco companies that founded and bankrolled pro-industry research groups like the Council for Tobacco Research that performed purportedly "independent research." Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline pointed out that the companies "never publicly contradicted any of the false or misleading statements made by these entities," and that RJR and PM "engaged in a campaign of deception ... intended, among other things, to provide a psychological crutch' to keep addicted smokers smoking."

Amid an increasingly hostile climate towards secondhand smoke and tobacco advertising, tobacco companies are battling to maintain both their nicotine markets and the ability to use their logos. R.J. Reynolds stopped advertising cigarettes in magazines in 2008, but is once again printing its Camel logo in major magazines like Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and Maxim, in ads for a new form of non-combusted tobacco called "snus" (rhymes with "moose"). Snus is a form of chewing tobacco promoted as "spitless" because it's low salt content keeps users from having to expectorate tobacco juice publicly. Snus has been popular in Sweden. Some experts consider it safer than cigarettes because it is not burned, but this is the first time a major cigarette manufacturer has tried to market snus in the U.S. Camel snus ads promote the product as a way to get around smoking bans in airports, sporting venues and at concerts. Public health advocates point out that RJR is marketing snus as a complement to cigarettes, not as a replacement product, and that use of both products can lead to a dual nicotine addiction which is even harder to quit than addiction to one form of nicotine. RJR is also test-marketing other forms of non-combusted nicotine: dissolvable pellets similar to Tic Tacs called "Camel Orbs" that contain finely-ground tobacco, and nicotine-containing oral-use strips that resemble Listerine breath-freshening strips and that melt on the tongue. Danny McGoldrick of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids says the inconspicuousness of such products makes them undetectable in a classroom setting, which "could entice kids into the habit of tobacco use."

To "move the spotlight off the unpopular commercial banks and mortgage lenders that are the target of the legislation," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is claiming that the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency will hurt butchers. "The economy has made it tough on this local butcher's customers," reads the Chamber's latest ad. "So he lets some of them run a tab and pay the bill over time." According to the ad -- part of a campaign the Chamber is spending "at least $2 million" on -- the Consumer Financial Protection Agency would impact "virtually every business that extends credit to American consumers ... even the local butcher." A spokesman for Representative Barney Frank, who drafted the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act as the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, dismissed the Chamber ad as "scare tactics from the likes of big business." More scare tactics are in store, as "the business lobby intends to expand its campaign to include nationwide TV and radio ads later this month. Its lobbying push could feature other small-business owners, such as accountants, landlords and event planners." The Wall Street Journal reports, "There won't be any mention of banks or Wall Street or insurance companies."

Tar sands oil, "which is mined and boiled off instead of pumped out of the ground, is some of the dirtiest petroleum on Earth," with three times the greenhouse gas emissions of conventional oil. Yet the Consumer Energy Alliance recently launched an ad campaign supporting tar sands oil. The Alliance is an industry front group backed by the American Petroleum Institute, BP, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It's running television and radio ads "in the Dakotas, Montana and Tennessee opposing low carbon fuel standards," which would raise the cost of tar sands oil. "A low carbon fuel standard was part of the Waxman-Markey climate bill in the U.S. House, but it was removed before the bill moved to the Senate, where it awaits action this fall. The Consumer Energy Alliance still fears a low carbon fuel standard could be reinserted or that states such as Minnesota and California might enact their own." The front group defends tar sands oil, which comes from Canada, as "North American Energy," and misrepresents the low-carbon fuel standard as a "ban" on "domestic [sic] supplies of transportation fuels."

Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod's public relations and ad industry ties -- which received some scrutiny during the presidential campaign -- are again being questioned. Opponents of health care reform (mostly Republicans) are criticizing the "huge ad buys" that pro-reform groups are making through Axelrod's old firm. "Two separate $12 million ad campaigns advocating Obama's health care plan ... were produced and placed partly by AKP&D Message & Media, a firm founded by Axelrod that employs his son and still owes Axelrod $2 million," reports Politico.com. Another firm working on the ad campaigns, GMMB, "did millions of dollars of work on Obama's presidential campaign." Both GMMB and AKPD "tout their connections to [Obama's] campaign and still maintain close ties to his inner circle." The ad buys were placed by Americans for Stable Quality Care and its predecessor, Healthy Economy Now, coalitions including the labor union SEIU and the drug industry group PhRMA. A Republican memo, referring to a PhRMA-Senate deal to limit reform costs to the drug industry to $80 billion over ten years, asked whether Axelrod "recused himself from the PhRMA 'deal,' or will he work to defend an agreement with an industry that is directly funding his son's work, and indirectly funding his own $2 million severance package?" The coalitions said they chose AKPD for its respected track record, not its Obama ties. The White House says Axelrod is in full compliance with its ethics rules.