Chuck Schumer

Nov. 21 (UPI) — The U.S. Coast Guard has reversed course on swastikas and nooses, saying they are “hate symbols” after reportedly issuing guidance calling them “potentially divisive.”

The agency late Thursday said the guidance “doubles down on its current policies prohibiting the display, distribution or use of hate symbols by Coast Guard personnel.”

“This is not an updated policy but a new policy to combat any misinformation and double down that the U.S. Coast Guard forbids these symbols,” the Coast Guard, which is part of Homeland Security, said in a news release.

The new guidance came after media outlets, led by The Washington Post, earlier Thursday reported that the Coast Guard had written a less firm policy earlier this month.

Since 2023, Coast Guard policy said displaying the symbols “constitutes a potential hate incident.”

“The Coast Guard does not tolerate the display of divisive or hate symbols and flags, including those identified with oppression or hatred,” the Coast Guard wrote about the policy on Thursday night.

“These symbols reflect hateful and prohibited conduct that undermines unit cohesion. A symbol or flag is prohibited as a reflection of hate if its display adversely affects good order and discipline, unit cohesion, command climate, morale, or mission effectiveness.”

Listed were “a noose, a swastika, and any symbols or flags co-opted or adopted by hate-based groups as representations of supremacy, racial or religious intolerance, anti-semitism or any other improper bias.”

The policy applies to all personnel and they “shall be removed from all Coast Guard workplaces, facilities and assets,” the agency said.

Also, all displays or depictions of Confederate battle flags continue to be prohibited.

In the earlier reported policy, commanders could take steps to remove them from public view and that the rule did not apply to private spaces outside public view, including family housing.

“At a time when anti-Semitism is rising in the United States and around the world, relaxing policies aimed at fighting hate crimes not only sends the wrong message to the men and women of our Coast Guard, but it puts their safety at risk,” Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada said Thursday.

She said the change “rolls back important protections against bigotry and could allow for horrifically hateful symbols, like swastikas and nooses, to be inexplicably permitted to be displayed.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the change “disgusting” and said “it’s more encouragement from the Republicans of extremism.”

Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the Coast Guard, called it “categorically false” to claim prohibitions were rolled back.

“These symbols have been and remain prohibited in the Coast Guard per policy,” Lunday said in a statement, adding that “any display, use or promotion of such symbols, as always, will be thoroughly investigated and severely punished.”

DHS denied there was a revision.

“The 2025 policy is not changing — USCG issued a lawful order that doubles down on our current policies prohibiting the display, distribution or use of hate symbols by Coast Guard personnel,” spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said to CNN.

Nooses are a symbol of hatred of black people, with thousands lynched between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the civil rights movement.

Swastikas represent Adolf Hitler‘s Nazi Germany, which killed millions of people during the Holocaust.

About 1,900 died while serving in the Coast Guard during World War II against Germany.

“The swastika is the ultimate symbol of virulent hate and bigotry, and even a consideration by the Coast Guard to no longer classify it as such would be equivalent to dismissing the Ku Klux Klan‘s burning crosses and hoods as merely ‘potentially divisive,'” Menachem Rosensaft, a law professor at Cornell University and a Jewish community leader, said in a statement to Military Times.

Other armed services are part of the Department of Defense.

In 2020, a Pentagon report found that extremist views were not widespread in the military, though there was the ability of people with military experience to carry out “high-impact events.”

Two months ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a review of all the hazing, bullying and harassment definitions across the military. He said they were “overly broad” and were “jeopardizing combat readiness, mission accomplishment and trust in the organization.”

During his confirmation hearing in January, Hegseth said a focus on extremism has “created a climate inside our ranks that feels political when it hasn’t ever been political.”

Nov. 10 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate plans a series of votes Monday night to try to end the record-long shutdown as House Speaker Mike Johnson called representatives to return to Washington to be there when a bill reaches them.

Earlier, Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said they were in a “holding pattern.”

Late Monday afternoon, the GOP’s whip office told CNN a vote would begin after 5 p.m. p.m. John Barrasso of Wyoming mobilizec members for key votes. A GOP aide confirmed the plans to CBS News.

On Sept. 19, the House approved short-gap spending legislation along party lines 217-213 that doesn’t include healthcare subsidies next year through the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Only a majority is needed in the House, but the Senate needs 60 votes in the 100-member chamber.

The Senate is scheduled to go into recess Tuesday for Veterans Day and was seeking to conclude business before then.

Thune said the American people “have suffered for long enough,” and other senators were reasonably optimistic.

“It’s very close,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, who also serves South Dakota. “We’ll work our way through a couple of issues.”

“I’m optimistic, yeah,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott said. “People want to, you know, they want to get — they want to go home.”

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is the only Republican to vote against past funding bills. He wants hemp farming in the agriculture appropriations bill in exchange for allowing the legislation to move quickly. The Senate plans to vote on the amendment.

“If Rand wants to plant his flag and hold the government shut down for over hemp in Kentucky, take that fight on. I think he’ll lose that one pretty hard,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, noting that another senator wants an amendment to withhold pay from members during government shutdowns.

Monday marked the 41st day of the United States’ longest-running government shutdown, which started Oct. 1. It beat the previous longest shutdown of 35 days, which took place in 2018 and 2019 during President Donald Trump‘s first term.

Despite the pending vote, Johnson further pushed against the Democrats’ battle to extend health insurance subsidies. The Senate would vote separately on the subsidies next month.

“There’ll be long days and long nights here for the foreseeable future to make up for all this lost time that was imposed upon us,” Johnson told reporters.

Senators held a procedural vote Sunday in which seven Democrats and one Independent joined Republicans to narrowly advance a funding measure 60-40.

In exchange for the Democrats’ votes, Republicans agreed to hold a vote in the future on extending Obamacare subsidies.

There are more steps to take before senators hold an official vote on legislation to fund the government through January, including a measure on how long the chamber will debate.

All but a few Democrats have voted 14 times against the House stopgap measure out of concerns over a lack of an extension to the ACA tax credits, set to expire end of December. More than 20 million U.S. citizens currently rely the ACA on for health insurance.

“The American people have now awoken to Trump’s healthcare crisis,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said.

“Healthcare is once again at the forefront of people’s minds,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “People now see that premiums are about to skyrocket. They’re terrified about how they’re going to pay for their insurance.”

The new measure would reverse all shutdown-related job layoffs, guarantee federal worker pay during the shutdown, establish a specific budget process and fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through September.

Johnson said he will give a 36-hour notice before any House votes, but did not offer a specific timeline.

The speaker, who has kept the lower chamber out of session since late September, indicated that a vote could occur as early as this week.

Any bill passed by both chambers will require a signature by Trump to become law. Trump said he intends to sign the legislation.

“Well, it depends what deal we’re talking about, but if it’s the deal I heard about … they want to change the deal a little bit, but I would say so,” Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in the Oval Office.

“I think, based on everything I’m hearing, they haven’t changed anything, and we have support from enough Democrats, and we’re going to be opening up our country. It’s too bad it was closed, but we’ll be opening up our country very quickly.”

That includes adhering to a provision that would reverse layoffs of federal workers his administration pushed during the shutdown.

In the House, Johnson plans to swear in Adelita Grijalva of Arizona when the members return, according to a CNN source.

Grijalva was elected Sept 23, but Johnson refused to swear her in until Senate Democrats agreed to reopen the government.

Once Grijalva is sworn in, she is expected to become the 218th signature necessary to bypass leadership and force a vote on compelling the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein sex-abuse case.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday that House Democrats would continue to oppose the spending bill that advanced in the Senate this weekend.

“As House Democrats, we know we’re on the right side of this fight, the right side of the American people, and we’re not going to support partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of the American people, and we’re going to continue the fight to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” he said at a news conference.

Nov. 8 (UPI) — The federal government will extend its record-long close to 40 days after the Senate adjourned with no vote held on a possible budget deal on Saturday.

A small number of centrist Democratic Party senators have been negotiating with Republicans behind closed doors to try to craft a funding measure that would reopen the federal government, CNN reported.

They are making progress but said there disagreement remains over Democrats’ demand to extend Affordable Care Act credits that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

Senate Republicans are meeting at 12:30 p.m. EST on Sunday before resuming session.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., earlier said the Senate will work through the weekend to try to end the budget impasse and reopen the federal government, which shut down when the 2026 fiscal year started without a budget in place in Oct. 1.

Thune also said the Senate will continue to meet until a budget deal is approved.

The Senate was scheduled to be in recess around Veterans Day, which is Tuesday.

Instead, it convened after noon in a rare Saturday session, which was the fourth this year.

The last Sunday session was on Feb. 11, 2024, for a vote on emergency national security appropriations.

With the government closed for more than a month, around 900,000 workers are furloughed and another 700,000 are working without pay — a number that includes air traffic controllers, which has resulted in staffing issues and forced flight cancellations.

Food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was paused for this month, although the Supreme Court is set to decide a case on whether the Trump administration is legally required to fund the program.

The issue holding up an end to the shutdown is an extension of subsidies available for some Americans who purchase health insurance through an Affordable Care Act exchange. The ACA is also referred to as Obamacare.

Republicans want a clean funding bill with health insurance to be considered later, while Democrats want the government’s subsidies to be extended into next year as part of a funding bill.

A record 24.3 million have purchased insurance through one of the exchanges, with nine out of 10 receiving some sort of financial assistance.

Open enrollment began on Nov. 1 for most policyholders, one month after the shutdown began.

Rates will rise 26% on average next year, according to a KFF analysis — not including the end of the subsidies. In all, costs will more than double, according to a separate KFF analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Thune, of South Dakota, said both sides negotiated overnight on a possible short-term spending bill, while bipartisan negotiations also have been ongoing but not fruitful.

“I’m frustrated like everybody is,” GOP Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas told reporters on Saturday. “Every American is frustrated. Nobody wins in a shutdown, especially one that is this long.

Asked whether there could be a deal, he responded, “None. None at all. I’m almost speechless. What has not been said?”

Thune said a 15th vote on advancing the House-passed continuing resolution is not currently scheduled, but could come up later in the day.

In past votes, a few Democrats have approved the bill but 60 votes are needed. The Republicans have a 53-47 edge in the chamber.

“There’s still only one path out — it’s a clean funding extension,” Thune said on the Senate floor Saturday.

Senators have been told they will be given 24 hours to read the text of an agreement, a GOP aide told CNN.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma told reporters that consensus has emerged in the Republican conference around a Jan. 30 funding end date.

GOP senators have pushed for the funding with the goal of including longer-term appropriations bills and extending the deadline for funding, in exchange for a future vote on healthcare.

“The question is whether we can have everything ready to go,” Thune told reporters. “We’re getting close to having it ready. Ideally, it’d be great to set it up so we could vote today, but we have to … have the votes to actually pass it.”

On Friday, Republicans shot down a Democratic push toward a deal featuring a one-year tax credit extension on health insurance. Thune said the tax extension would be considered after the shutdown ends.

“That’s what we’re going to negotiate once the government opens up,” Thune said Friday.

Minor Leader Chuck Schumer of New York criticized Republicans for rejecting the idea.

“Yesterday, we offered Republicans a perfectly reasonable compromise to get out of this horrible shutdown that they installed on the American people,” Schumer said on the House floor. “We offered three things: we all vote to reopen the government, we all approve a one-time temporary extension of current ACA premium tax credits, and then after we reopen we negotiate.”

“I know many Republicans stormed out the gate to dismiss this offer, but that’s a terrible mistake,” he added.

Schumer said it doesn’t need to be negotiated because the idea “is not a new policy, this is not negotiating a shutdown.”

Thune has been adamant that he can’t guarantee Democrats a tax extension process.

President Donald Trump, who is at his estate in South Florida, has been pressing to end the filibuster rule and instead have bills pass by a majority of the 100 senators. Most Republicans are opposed to this “nuclear” option, fearing Democrats will do that when they are in power.

“Democrats are cracking like dogs on the Shutdown because they are deathly afraid that I am making progress with the Republicans on TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER!,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday afternoon. “Whether we make a Deal or not, THE REPUBLICANS MUST ‘BLOW UP’ THE FILIBUSTER, AND APPROVE HUNDREDS OF LONG SOUGHT, BUT NEVER GOTTEN, POLICY WINS LIKE, AS JUST A SMALL EXAMPLE, VOTER ID (IDENTIFICATION). Only a LOSER would not agree to doing this!”

End Obamacare?

Trump also told Republicans to end Obamacare, something he has attempted to do since he first became president in 2017.

He called it the “worst Healthcare anywhere in the World.”

On Saturday morning in a post on Truth Social, he said money used for the program should be sent directly to the public instead of “money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare.

“In other words, take it from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people.”

Medicare, mainly for seniors, has Part A and B that don’t go through insurance companies and are run by the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, an ally of Trump, touted the proposal.

“We’re not going to extend this program for a year because that would be unfair to the taxpayer,” Graham said on the Senate floor. “That would continue a healthcare system that’s out of control. It would enrich health insurance companies even more. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to replace this broken system with something that is actually better for the consumer to meet the goal of lowering health care costs.”

Graham said he spoke with Trump on Saturday morning and that the president told him he would “like to sit down and see if we can come up with a better solution. I know we can, but we’re not going to do it while the government’s shut down.”

Graham also urged Democrats to “end this madness.”

“To my Democratic colleagues, let’s open up the government and act like adults and see if we can get this problem in a better spot. We’ll never do it with the government shut down,” he said.

Nov. 7 (UPI) — Democrats are ready to end the federal government shutdown if Republicans agree to extend Affordable Care Act credits for another year, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Friday afternoon.

Schumer, D-N.Y., said Senate Democrats favor passing a temporary funding measure and three other bills that would fund the federal government for one year, CNN reported.

“Democrats are offering a very simple compromise,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

“Now, the ball is in the Republicans’ court,” he added. “We need Republicans to just say yes.”

Schumer’s announcement came after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., earlier said the Senate will work through the weekend to negotiate reopening the federal government and possibly vote after a bipartisan effort failed Thursday.

Thune wanted to hold another vote on the House-approved continuing resolution to fund the federal government through Nov. 21, but Senate Democrats aren’t on board, he told media earlier Friday.

“Our members are going to be advised to be available if, in fact, there’s a need to vote,” he said.

“We will see what happens and whether or not, over the course of the next couple of days, the Democrats can find their way to re-engage again,” Thune added.

Thune earlier this week expressed optimism that a funding agreement would be made this week, but that ended after Senate Democrats met on Thursday.

“All I know is that the pep rally they had at lunch yesterday evidently changed some minds,” he said Friday.

“We had given them everything they wanted and had asked for,” Thune explained. “At some point, I was gonna say they have to take ‘yes’ for an answer, and they were trending in that direction.”

The impasse is due to Senate Democrats not trusting President Donald Trump to agree to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that expire after December and to stop firing federal employees, The Hill reported.

Senate Democrats held a working lunch on Thursday, as referenced by Thune, during which they rejected a bipartisan proposal to reopen the government.

Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Angus King, I-Maine, had worked out a deal with the GOP, which buoyed Thune’s hope of ending the government shutdown on its record 38th day.

Senate Democrats discussed the bipartisan proposal during their Thursday lunch and rejected it due to their distrust of the president.

The proposal would have included a short-term funding measure to reopen the government and a three-year appropriations bill that would have funded the Agriculture Department, Veterans Affairs, military construction and the legislative branch.

The USDA funding would have meant full funding for currently suspended Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

Lacking strong guarantees that the president would support extending Affordable Care Act credits that initially were enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic and that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, the Senate Democrats said they won’t support the bipartisan plan to move forward.

Despite the continued opposition from Senate Democrats, Thune doesn’t expect the shutdown to continue into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend at the end of the month, he said while appearing on Fox News Friday.

Thune needs at least five more Senate Democrats to join with Democratic Party Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and King, who caucuses with Senate Democrats, to approve the continuing resolution.

Fetterman, Masto and King consistently have voted in favor of continuing the 2025 fiscal year budget while negotiating the budget for the 2026 fiscal year, which started on Oct. 1.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is the only Republican senator to continually vote against the measure.

The House-approved continuing resolution consistently has received a majority of support in the Senate, but it has not received the 60 votes needed to overcome the Senate’s filibuster rule for passage.