Who could have guessed it would happen so soon?

VDARE.COM reader Tim Aaronson, that’s who.

In response to my column about American players being replaced on the field by foreign-born athletes “On Cinco de Mayo, Strike Three for American Baseball Players,”
Aaronson wrote that soon the bidding for more visas for would intensify.

And now–a mere month after Aaronson’s letter –the New York Yankees have signed two players from the very unlikely location, from a baseball perspective, of China.[Yankees welcome newly-signed players from China By Larry Fine (Reuters) July 6, 2007 ]

The two new Yankees are Liu Kai, a left-handed pitcher and catcher Zhang Zhenwang.

Based on Yankee general manager Brian Cashman’s evaluation of the two 19-year-olds, they would be lucky to make the College World Series champion Oregon State Beavers.

According to Cashman, Kai has an extremely slow 84-mile an hour fastball–�a marshmallow for major league hitters.

And Zhenwang is “a defensive catcher.” In other words, he can’t hit.

But never mind that. The Yankees have their eye on a new market in China. Imagine all those billions of Chinese wearing Yankee caps and t-shirts. As Cashman said about the signings: “It was a critical start to opening a new market for baseball.”

Kai and Zhenwang will soon have their visas. Their families will follow them to America shortly.

By the way, I wonder if Cashman knows what their politics are?

Alexander Mooney writes at CNN:

Arizona Sen. John McCain, once the early favorite to win the nomination, reported raising a disappointing $11.2 million in the second quarter with only $2 million cash on hand — $400,000 less than Paul. His campaign said his support of immigration reform legislation hurt his fundraising ability.

The fact that of the 3-4 major GOP candidates, none of them support anything close to the the kinds of immigration policies Americans say they want says a lot about how that party is really run. Right now, I expect Paul may win Iowa, New Hampshire or even both of those contests.

The GOP is also clearly losing the money contest-which is a traditional GOP strength. Of course who would have thought before H-1b expansion, the GOP would loose college educated, white males-their traditional core base?

The question now: who in the GOP will keep fighting even if they are in what appears a hopeless situation? Paul has loyal supporters who are used to fighting battles that are hard to win.

I expect that the eventual nominee will be Fred Thompson–and Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani will take the VP slot. However, if that campaign is simply an embarrassment, the Paul forces will gain significant strength in 2012.

AFP writes:

US software behemoth Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it would soon open an office in Canada, lamenting tough immigration rules in the United States that make it difficult to hire foreign staff.

First off, MS already has offices in many places it does business in. I expect these folks are in trouble though. H-1b expansion has alienated a lot of senior US talent. MS management had a habit of donating heavily to the GOP-and I don’t think the new Democratic leadership will be that forgiving. I see anti-trust actions in MS’s future and expect more regulation of transnational organizations like MS. I also see real competition coming from the XO-Machine and Desktop Linux.

The bottom line is that it is still governmental authorities that make the rules companies play by. Those rules can change if congress get some backbone.

Personally, I think putting Microsoft in their place will make the lives of software engineers easier.

There are parallels between VDARE.com and Antiwar.com. Both focus very tightly on our respective issues. Both serve as arsenals, where sympathizers can easily find ammunition and refreshment, otherwise sparsely available in the MSM desert. Both are led by men who provide radical and decisive strategic visions on the topics they cover – Peter Brimelow and Justin Raimondo. But our paths rarely cross.

Yesterday they did. On Independence Day, the US military in Iraq staged a political demonstration, swearing into citizenship 161 soldiers in a massive ceremony in Baghdad. The quality of the proceedings was hallmarked by the presence of Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, flown in for the occasion.

(U.S. troops naturalized in Iraq By Molly Hennessey-Fiske Los Angeles Times July 5 2007)

Unsurprisingly to his regular readers, Justin Raimondo did not collapse into sentimental mush:

In the face of this administration’s rhetorical antics, one can only shake one’s head, get some earplugs, and try to look away. The president’s speechwriters have a feel for the worst of the American cultural ethos. Their prose is like the obscene online antics of Paris Hilton, or an episode of American Idol: vulgar, attention-seeking, and utterly profane.

The World Turned Upside-Down by Justin Raimondo Antiwar.com July 6 2007

But, as usual, he has cogent political reasons for disgust:

Whatever one’s position on the immigration question, opponents of our present foreign policy of relentless aggression can hopefully all agree that the practice of granting citizenship to foreigners if they sign up for the U.S. military is reprehensible and ought to be stopped forthwith. Because what it means is that, as Americans grow tired of and openly hostile to foreign wars and refuse to fight them, the War Party can always turn to an overseas contingent of willing cannon fodder ready to risk all for the chance to live a decent life. (VDARE.com emphasis)

This in my view is a very serious point. Clearly avoiding implementing a draft and reducing the brutal burden thrust on the National Guard would tremendously help this Administration (and the next) to keep the Iraq venture going

It’s not inconceivable that U.S. military recruiters will soon be setting up shop overseas, bribing potential GIs with green cards and the promise of a bright future in America, where the streets are paved with gold. Every ambitious thug, every upwardly mobile Mexican mafia “enforcer,” every Russian skinhead with his eyes on the prize will flock to these recruiting centers…Americans won’t fight unjust wars that aren’t in our national interest, but a foreigner, desperate – for whatever reason – to leave his or her homeland and come to America for a chance at a better life, is a different matter altogether. Why shouldn’t they join up, no matter what the justice or the purpose of the war?

However, Raimondo sees deeper than this. He asks the central VDARE.com question – the National Question:

As we add provinces to our overseas empire, the influx of refugees, green-card-holders, asylum-seekers, and naturalized military recruits will effect a sea change in the electorate and in Americans’ attitudes toward the prospect of becoming an imperial power…All empires are, almost by definition, multicultural entities…all catalysts for the importation of a large immigrant population, which in turn had an impact on the culture and politics of the imperial homeland…before our leaders make the successful transition from a plain republican cloth coat to the imperial purple there has to be a fundamental change in the traditional American character – and perhaps only a massive immigrant influx could accomplish it.

Pointing out that the Roman policy of employing foreign-born mercenaries led to these men, in the form of the Praetorian Guard, dominating Imperial politics in the later stages of the Empire, Raimondo says the unsayable:

I’m not saying that legions of foreign-born soldiers are going to pull off a coup against Our Dear Leader. What I am saying is that the political culture many of these newly recruited neo-Americans hail from hardly rules this out. Latin America, the largest source of immigration to America, has spawned many a military coup: indeed, south of the Rio Grande, this is something of a time-honored tradition. Something about the political culture of those lands encourages the cult of the Leader and militates against constitutionally limited government and the rule of law.

Alberto Gonzales - a call for you!