Free Republic

Three decades ago, a middle-aged doctor sat outside his northern Michigan home and saw a patch of endangered paradise. A beekeeper and amateur naturalist of prodigious energy, John Tanton had spent two decades planting trees, cleaning creeks and suing developers, but population growth put ever more pressure on the land. Though fertility rates had fallen, he saw a new threat emerging: soaring rates of immigration. Time and again, Dr. Tanton urged liberal colleagues in groups like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club to seek immigration restraints, only to meet blank looks and awkward silences. “I finally concluded that if anything...

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) is expected to announce the formation of an exploratory committee to seek the candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. "He's going to paint himself as a mainstream conservative," says the staffer for one of Tancredo's colleagues in the House of Representatives. "But the folks he's associating with are not part of the mainstream." Tancredo, who came to national prominence on the basis of his tough stands on immigration reform, an issue he has pressed for quite some time. "There is more to Tancredo than just immigration," says another House staffer. "If he does this, he's going...