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Hispanics made up nearly half of the more than 1 million people who became U.S. citizens last year, according to a Hispanic advocacy group.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials said the number of Latinos who became Americans in fiscal year 2008 more than doubled over the previous year, to 461,317. That's nearly half of the record 1,046,539 new citizens overall in 2008, a 58 percent increase from 2007.

Not satisfied with merely taking the seat, Republicans decided to craft their seemingly inevitable win into a propaganda victory, spinning the campaign as a referendum on Obama and his agenda. “This election ... is a giant opportunity for us to let America know that America is on our side,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, under fire from his losing battle with Rush Limbaugh and a string of disastrous media appearances, said he was in the “business of winning seats” and staked his chairmanship on the race. “This will be a battle royale,” he said. “We’ve come to play and we’ve come to win.” Eighty-two Republican House members wrote checks for Tedisco, leading a NRCC spokesman to brag, “This is not only an indication of Jim Tedisco’s strength as a candidate, it’s proof that members are invested in our overall plans to fight back to the majority.”

Republicans were certainly invested in the race. The RNC spent $280,000 compared to $10,000 from the Democratic National Committee, and the NRCC invested $871,681 to the DCCC’s $591,591. Outside forces favoring Tedisco dumped $2.06 million into the race, compared to just $1.23 million from pro-Murphy groups. And Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, among others, lent their fundraising heft to their party’s candidate.

Given the money, the candidate and the district, the election should’ve been a slam-dunk. But Tedisco was a … how do you say? Oh, yeah: Republican. And after hemming and hawing for weeks when questioned about whether he’d support Barack Obama’s stimulus package, Tedisco’s final answer — “No!” — was proof to his district’s voters that he would not stand up as an independent, responsible voice for his district in Congress.

I'm not unsympathetic about copyright issues. I'm conscientious about fair use concepts on this site. But the alternative to linking and quoting is... not linking and not quoting. But guess what? I can just "rip and paraphrase" anyway. I know it isn't what people are used to, but linking and quoting on the internet seems to provide more respect for the original as well as for the business model by driving traffic.

Given the number of reporters that bombard the editors at this site looking for links, it seems that many people in the tradmed understand this. But the AP seems to think that walling itself off from the rest of the web will be beneficial to their product. Of course, the opposite will happen -- it'll make them irrelevant. Getting links is good. Go after those who post entire copyrighted pieces. We ban people on Daily Kos who break those rules. But to whine about blockquotes and links is merely a step toward that irrelevancy.