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Rep. Charles Rangel, a powerful senior Democrat in Congress and the dean of New York's congressional delegation, said Wednesday that he'll quit Congress if the Democrats don't retake control of the House this year. "I'm a poker player and I've had good hands all night long. This is all in," Rangel said in an interview. "I would not put everything on the table if I thought for one minute we would lose." Rangel, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee, is 76 years old and has spent 35 years in Congress. The Democrats need to gain 15...

ASSIMILATION AND ITS MEANING. The End of Gay Culture Andrew Sullivan For ... two decades, I have spent much of every summer in the small resort of Provincetown, at the tip of CapeCod. It has long attracted artists, writers, the offbeat, and the bohemian; and, for many years now, it has been to gay America what Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard is to black America: a place where a separate identity essentially defines a separate place. No one bats an eye if two men walk down the street holding hands, or if a lesbian couple pecks each other on the...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Democrats threaten shutdownBy Charles HurtTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished March 16, 2005 Democrats yesterday said they will halt all Senate business except essential operations and national defense if Republicans use the "nuclear option" to unclog President Bush's judicial nominees.     Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada made the threat in a letter yesterday to Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has said he has the 51 votes needed for a parliamentary procedure that would force the nominees through the Senate on a simple majority vote.     "Of course, Democrats would never block legislation vital to our troops or other national...