While Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum duke it out for delegates in high-profile primaries like Illinois and Pennsylvania, Ron Paul’s quiet pursuit of delegates appears to be paying off.

Early results from Missouri’s caucuses this weekend show that the long-shot libertarian candidate is significantly outperforming his rivals in the race for delegates. Senior campaign advisors tell Business Insider that Paul appears to have picked up the majority of Missouri’s delegates, despite having lost the state’s nonbinding primary to Rick Santorum.

“We did do real well in Missouri,” Benton said. “Some county conventions are still going on, but we’ve got good turnout. Anecdotal evidence shows we won multiple caucuses, and it looks like we’re going to pick up the majority of delegates.”

Although the final delegate tally won’t be determined until the state party convention this spring, Paul’s success in Missouri is a validation of his low-key caucus strategy. The Paul campaign has recently shifted its focus to winning unbound delegates in caucus states, where delegates are elected at state conventions rather than by the popular vote.

CONTINUED at Business Insider.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Today is a great day for liberty. As I write this it is January 18^th, 2012 and the Internet is ablaze with anger towards SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). Not only was The Swash down in protest of these dastardly bills but Internet giants Wikipedia and Reddit were down as well. Shit, even Google participated in this blackout with a unique graphic on their page that lead to information about these two horrible laws and what you can do to fight them.

I was more than ecstatic today when I signed into my Facebook account and was overwhelmed by all the people who blacked out their own photos and had status updates and links protesting SOPA and PIPA plastered all over the home page. The impact of this protest is literally reaching further than any other online protest I’ve ever witnessed or been a part of. In fact, in just a few short hours, the tide has turned and the pimps pushing this law are now starting to run like the two-faced pandering bastards they are. I guess when you shine a little light the cockroaches scatter.

One of my favorite punching bags, Marco Rubio – the Republican senator form my home state of Florida, was a co-sponsor on one of these evil bills but he has now come out against it. This is because Rubio is a dickbag, a panderer and a wolf in Tea Party clothing. This “noble” act doesn’t excuse the fact that he co-sponsored PIPA and was also a champion for the insanely tyrannical NDAA bill, which just passed recently. Don’t get excited and let Rubio fool you, when this dies down, he’ll help reintroduce the bill with a few modifications and continue on his fascist path.

Conservative darling Paul Ryan just wrote this status update on his Facebook:

The Internet is one of the most magnificent expressions of freedom and free enterprise in history. It should stay that way. While H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, attempts to address a legitimate problem, I believe it creates the precedent and possibility for undue regulation, censorship and legal abuse. I do not support H.R. 3261 in its current form and will oppose the legislation should it come before the full House.

While that sounds all fine and dandy, Mr. Ryan doesn’t fully oppose the idea of the bill and chances are, if it was tweaked and the opposition towards it died down, he may just very well vote for it.

Senators Jim DeMint, Robert Menendez and others have come out against this tyranny. Another co-sponsor, Arizona congressman Ben Quayle has withdrawn his support. Freedom fighter and libertarian leaning Michigan congressman Justin Amash continues to speak out against this, as does Kentucky senator Rand Paul and his father, Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.

The opposition to these bills has grown so quickly in the last several hours that six Republican senators wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The letter states:

We have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights.

For those of you who have been in the dark, I’ll break down what these bills are. In a nutshell, what they are supposed to do is to protect copyrighted material and eliminate piracy. What they actually do is a different story.

Basically, these bills give the entertainment industry the power to censor the Internet and breed a whole new type of crony capitalism while forcing us into a digital police state. You see, private corporations want to be able to choose what can and cannot be censored on the Internet. These corporations are trying to protect their property, which is understandable, and since the Internet is a bastion for downloading music and movies, they want to be able to tighten their grip and control how the whole system works. Considering that many of the sources for this copyrighted material exists outside of United States jurisdiction, these laws are being put in place to give the government and their corporate buddies an easier way at stopping copyright infringement. Again, that is understandable but the methods about doing this are just awful.

The first thing that this does is it gives the power to United States based ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to have special access at blocking infringing domain names. This also gives companies the power to sue websites, bloggers or whoever until they remove links or information directing Internet users to anything that they deem as infringed upon property.

Secondly, the government and their corporate pals would also be given the power to cut off funds to any websites that they believe are infringing on copyrights. Essentially, they can forcibly cancel infringing websites accounts with financial services and advertisers.

Now even though this all may seem somewhat proactive, one has to look at what actually constitutes copyright infringement. The description that they provide is so broad that if you technically upload a video to YouTube and there happens to be a piece of a song playing in the background, even if it’s just on the radio while you’re talking to the camera unaware of it, you have just infringed on copyrighted material and could face some serious penalties. This is just a small example but think of all the things you come across on the Internet on a daily basis that could technically be considered as copyright infringement. Violations are pretty much fucking everywhere! Hell, the whole Internet is a violation!

Besides all that, if there is a will there is a way. These laws won’t stop Internet users from finding music and movies to download illegally. In fact, even if a URL is blocked, an Internet user can still access the site via its IP address. Hell, this might start a revolution in web browsing and millions of digital pirates will be navigating the Net with IPs as opposed to typical URLs.

Another thing to mention is that these laws are incredibly bad for business. Essentially, they will cripple and stifle startups as corporations will have the power to sue any company that they feel isn’t properly protecting their interests. In a classic case of crony capitalism or corporatism, this allows the giants to stay on top, where they can look down and crush any growing company that may become a viable competitor for their business. Basically, these bills will create and perpetuate monopolies. When large corporations have the power to bankrupt new search engines and social networking sites, there really isn’t room for growth or innovation. We might as well just go back to the days of dark dingy uninspiring chat rooms.

The scariest thing that these laws will do is tamper with the Internet as a whole from the backend. By messing around with the Internet’s vast registry of domain names we could very well end up with a World Wide Web that is less stable and less secure. At the end of the day, these laws won’t stop piracy, as they claim and they will just create an environment for a new type of corporatism while leaving the Internet less secure and less reliable than it has ever been.

The Internet has already become a playground for government and corporate meddling. Hell, they already have laws in place to protect copyright infringement yet they want to push the envelope as far as they can. As of right now, the government and corporations already have the power to block any site just off of one infringing link. Social media giants like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and others are now forced to censor their users because if they don’t, they become liable for the material their users upload and could be forced to shut down. On top of that, an ordinary Internet user could already be sentenced to prison for up to five years just for posting any copyrighted material – this includes someone like Tay Zonday who became an Internet sensation for singing pop song covers.

This situation is incredibly fucked up and it is just one more battle in a long line or tyrannous laws that the government is trying to impose on us. Just add this ingredient to the same bowl of tyranny punch that already consists of the PATRIOT Act, NDAA, indefinite detention, Homeland Security, the TSA, previous Internet censorship, FEMA, etc. The list goes on and on and hopefully people’s distrust in government has grown to the point that all future legislation the tyrants bring forth will be scrutinized and passionately opposed as much as SOPA and PIPA.

In the end, we’ve got to chain these bastards’ feet to the grill and turn up the fire until they do what we say because frankly, that’s their damn job.

After huge volume of complaints, Fox reporter was forced to do-over post debate breakdown revealing that Ron Paul blitzed the debate in every category.

The dirty tricks campaign against GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul reached new heights during the South Carolina debate last night, with virtual exclusion from the first 40 minutes of the program, poisonous questions in the second half, and a cringe inducing situation during the post debate analysis where Fox pundits were forced to admit that Paul had completely wiped the floor with the other candidates.

During the post debate commentary, Fox reporter John Roberts blatantly excluded Paul from the charts and graphs he presented representing feedback from viewers.

The results of Twitter surveys on which candidate had most accurately answered questions and who had performed the best were displayed with Ron Paul’s name nowhere to be seen.

Almost one hour later, Roberts was called upon to go over the results one more time, after floods of complaints from viewers asking why Paul had been left out.

“John, you caused a fury in my world.” Fox anchor Harris Faulkner began. “I have a bone to pick with you. You left off Ron Paul.” she added, before Roberts attempted to slime out of the fact hat he had totally excluded Paul from his results tally by saying that because Ron Paul won by huge margins in every category, it was unnecessary to report on it!

Roberts then went through each debate topic again with Paul added to the graphic. As he explained the result Roberts downplayed and skipped over Ron Paul’s figures in every category, causing Harris Faulkner to interject.

“John, can I stop you right there because I’m getting real time feedback.” Faulkner said. “Ron Paul did not just do well, he did the best from that chart. I just want to be fair because people are watching for this.” she added.

Roberts then laughed out loud and flippantly said “his bars are bigger than everyone else’s, we report you decide.” before once again mocking Paul’s performance as he continued the presentation.

Watch the unbelievable footage below:

The fact that Ron Paul was the outright winner of  the debate was remarkable, given the fact that the moderators had done their utmost to exclude, smear and misrepresent the Congressman earlier in the night.

The opening portion of the debate was exclusively reserved for Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to attack frontrunner Mitt Romney in an atmosphere that more resembled The Jerry Springer show than a coherent political debate.

Refraining from joining in with such pantomime ridiculousness, Ron Paul patiently waited to be addressed by the moderators… and waited… and waited.

Indeed, during the first 40 minutes Ron Paul was only asked one question, and that was about “scathing attacks” on the other candidates in campaign ads. Refusing to be drawn into what was rapidly becoming something resembling an opening segment of WWE Smackdown, Paul succinctly noted that he believed pointing out legitimate flaws in the other candidates voting records was fair game.

As the exclusion of Paul continued, it even triggered a commercial break discussion between the Fox political panel about how Paul was being sidelined. Analyst Ed Rollins commented, “I thought Paul placed second in New Hampshire and was effectively second in Iowa – but they’ve got him standing way over on the side.”

When Paul was finally asked further questions, they were so leading and laced with underlying venom it defied belief.

With almost every question the Congressman had to begin his answer by correcting the moderators for grossly distorting his position on multiple issues.

Firstly, Paul had to once again explain that there is a significant difference between “defense spending” and Pentagon waste, and that he is not about to decimate military funding, as the moderators suggested.

“You don’t understand there’s a difference between military spending and defense spending. Just because you spend — spend a billion dollars on an embassy in Baghdad bigger than the Vatican — you consider that defense spending. I consider that waste.” Paul said to thunderous applause.

“I want to cut military money. I don’t want to cut defense money,” Paul said. “I want to bring the troops home. I’d probably have more bases here at home. We were closing them down in the 1990s and building them overseas. That’s how we got into trouble. So we would save a lot more money and have a stronger national defense, and that’s what we should do,” he contended.

Following that, Fox Moderator Bret Baier then essentially called Paul a terrorist-sympathizer by suggesting that he was opposed to the capture of Osama Bin Laden and that international law should have prevented US forces from tracking Bin Laden down.

“Obviously no, and I did not say that.” Paul retorted, explaining that he voted for provisions to go after Bin Laden following 9/11, and even introduced legislation to keep focused on the target, rather than become embroiled in nation building.

Paul then explained that “there are proper procedures, rather than digging bigger holes for ourselves”, noting that a ten year campaign of bombing Pakistan and repeatedly violating their sovereignty was not something he supported.

Watch all of Ron Paul’s debate answers below:

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Prison Planet.

It’s on — at least partially: Reddit has announced that it will be going dark for 12 hours to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said that he hopes to coordinate with the site so that Wikipedia does the same. Will other sites join in? Should we prepare for the Great Internet Strike of 2012?

Writing that it’s “not taking this action lightly,” Reddit announced on Tuesday that it will blackout its site on Wednesday, January 18 for 12 hours, starting at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. During that period, the site’s content will be replaced with “a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action.” The company will also run a live video stream of that day’s House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Internet security, intellectual property and economic growth.

On the site’s blog, the Reddit team admitted that “We’re as addicted to reddit as the rest of you,” but explained that “We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to reddit and the Internet as we know it. Blacking out reddit is a hard choice, but we feel focusing on a day of action is the best way we can amplify the voice of the community.” The company admits that support for a blackout isn’t unanimous among the Reddit community and it’s asking for the community’s input as it decides what to do next.

(MORE: At the Top of Congress’ New Year Agenda? Regulate the Net)

If support isn’t unanimous within Reddit’s community, it’ll be interesting to see how things go for Wikipedia if that site follows suit. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales writes ”it would be great if we could act quickly to coordinate with Reddit,” thought adding the community needs a “thumbs up/thumbs down vote” on whether or not to participate, and “we don’t have the luxury of time that we usually have, in terms of negotiating with each other for weeks about what’s exactly the best possible thing to do.” I suspect the ratio of those in favor of a blackout to those opposed would be greater for a more activist site like Reddit than one that’s more mainstream (and let’s be honest, passive) like Wikipedia.

Something I appreciate about Reddit’s announcement is that they’ve factored in the importance of educating would-be visitors to the site about why they’ve decided to go dark, what SOPA is and why it’s so important. I can only assume Wikipedia would do the same thing, should the site community decide to go dark on the same day. After all, protests only work when people understand why they’re happening.

That said, now that we have a date for a potential shutdown, the question becomes “Who else will join in?” Google, Twitter and Facebook have all been rumored as contenders, in part because of comments made by NetCoalition’s Markham Erickson (when I asked, Google and Twitter declined to comment on their support for an Internet blackout). But with a real strike looming and despite attempts to push the issue onto agendas, support for this kind of action may be shifting in favor of alternative methods. Finding other ways to protest may be ineluctable — after all, we’re talking about the Internet’s most popular sites going dark for 24 hours.

Sure, there may be some disappointment that we’re not days from Temporary Internet Apocalypse To Prove a Point, but I suspect there’s relief as well. The idea of a multi-pronged attack on pro-SOPA arguments — of different flavors of activism and discussion for different people — feels like the more mature response on behalf of tech companies (who after all may not agree on what’s wrong with SOPA as it stands). Let Wikipedia close for the day and generate headlines, while others like Google and Facebook pursue alternative forms of protest that engage their respective audiences. In the end, the more people paying attention, the better.

MORE: SOPA: What if Google, Facebook and Twitter Went Offline in Protest?
Source: Tech Land.

*Taken from CNBC.

We had a poll up from our Republican Presidential Debate asking readers who they thought won. One candidate was leading by such a margin that it became obvious the polling wasn’t so much a reading of our audience, but of the Internet prowess of this particular candidate’s political organization. We have therefore taken the poll down.

Yes, we’ve gone through this exercise before.

Mark Dice calls CNN’s breaking news tip line to inform them about this year’s Bilderberg Group meeting and urges them to stop the news blackout. Mark Dice is a media analyst, social critic, political activist, and author who, in an entertaining and educational way, gets people to question our celebrity obsessed culture, and the role the mainstream media plays in shaping our lives.

My Two Cents: LOLZ.. Communism. End Two Cents.

*Taken from MyWay.

BEIJING (AP) – Chinese steel mills and mobile phone factories are being idled and thousands of homes in one area are doing without electricity as local governments order power cuts to meet energy-saving targets set by Beijing.

Rolling blackouts and enforced power cuts are affecting key industrial areas. The prosperous eastern city of Taizhou turned off street lights and ordered hotels and shopping malls to cut power use. In Anping County southwest of Beijing, an area known as China’s wire-manufacturing capital, thousands of factories and homes have endured daylong blackouts over the past two weeks.

“We can’t meet deadlines for some orders and will have to pay penalties,” said Han Hongmai, general manager of Anping’s Jintai Metal Wire Co. “At home we can’t use the toilet” on blackout days due to lack of power for water pumps, he said.

While the U.S. and Europe struggle with flagging economies, the power outages are symptomatic of China’s torrid growth and officials’ capricious use of their powers to meet the authoritarian government’s goals.

China’s economic expansion, which hit 10.3 percent in the latest quarter, blew holes in government efforts to curb surging energy demand, pollution and emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Beijing told local leaders to clamp down and stepped up pressure by sending inspectors to see the order was carried out.

“You could say local governments are trying to blackmail the central government: If you order me to do something I can’t deliver, I will pass on the pressure to ordinary people,” said Yang Ailun, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace China.

The Cabinet planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, scolded Anping officials for the household power cuts. The provincial government issued an order to see that all homes have power.

It’s not the first time something like this has happened.

In 2007, gasoline shortages disrupted the economy after refiners cut production in response to price controls. The next year, parts of China shivered through blackouts in bitter winter cold after the government froze power prices, prompting utilities to cut expenses by letting coal stockpiles run low.

This year’s power cuts began after Beijing announced in August that an energy efficiency campaign suffered a setback as a stimulus-fueled building boom drove growth in steel, cement and other heavy industry.

Beijing’s plans call for cutting energy intensity, or energy used per unit of economic output, by 20 percent from 2006 levels by this year. The World Bank says China uses up to twice the energy per unit of output as the United States, Japan and other economies. Chinese officials say energy use is 3.4 times the world average.

Energy intensity fell by 14.4 percent by the end of 2009 after thousands of antiquated steel mills and other factories were forced to close, the government says. But it crept back up by 0.9 percent in the first half of this year.

Beijing reacted by ordering 2,087 steel and cement mills and other factories with poor environmental controls to close. The Cabinet stepped up pressure on local leaders by sending inspectors to 18 of China’s 32 provinces and major regions to enforce efficiency.

“They understand that if they fail to meet this target it could potentially cast doubt not just internationally but domestically about whether China is serious about tackling its emissions,” said Greenpeace’s Yang.

Yang said environmentalists welcome moves to close antiquated factories because that improves overall efficiency. But she said temporary blanket cuts come at a high social cost and the government should be taking more long-term steps such as changing energy pricing to encourage conservation.

“What they are doing now is relying too much on harsh administrative orders,” she said.

In some ways, the power cuts are backfiring. Han, the manager in Anping, said his wire factory coped by purchasing its own generator. So it still uses power – but from a source that might be dirtier and less efficient.

Energy is politically sensitive for Beijing, which is trying to clean up the battered Chinese environment and rein in growing demand for imported oil and gas, which it sees as a strategic weakness.

Booming China passed the United States last year as the world’s top energy consumer, according to the International Energy Agency – a report that Beijing angrily rejected.

China also is the biggest source of climate-changing greenhouse gases. As a developing country it is not bound by U.N. climate treaties but has pledged to curb emissions growth, though it says the United States and other advanced economies should do more.

Some of China’s biggest companies have been hobbled by the campaign, which is cutting production at a time when Beijing needs to create jobs to sustain a rebound from the global crisis.

Baosteel Group, a major steelmaker, announced Sept. 1 it was shutting down a 2 million-ton-a-year blast furnace in Ningbo, a port city south of Shanghai.

“The suspension could last over three months, causing a loss of 180,000 tons of steel a month,” the facility’s deputy director, Huang Ming, said in a company statement.

Zhejiang province, where Ningbo is located, failed to achieve even a 1 percent improvement in energy intensity in the first half of this year, said a provincial government notice. It said this year’s target is a 3.2 percent improvement.

In Jiangsu province, north of Shanghai, factories that make mobile phones, computers and other electronics were ordered to shut down for five days every two weeks, according to Chinese media.

In Hebei province, authorities have imposed energy quotas on factories and threatened violators with fines and a cutoff of power and water supplies, the state-run newspaper Shanghai Securities News said. It said the curbs hit as steelmakers were preparing for a peak production season.

“People in the industry are heartbroken,” the newspaper said.