Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
So BP representing the fossil fuels industry and the filthy rich has given the climate, biodiversity and all humanity an unambiguous big two fingers. They’re saying fekk you, our profits come before anything, we continue to destroy the climate and all else. Despite the UK government saying no new licences in the North Sea we don’t know where they’re at with licence decisions pending for Rosebank and Jackdaw and government support for airport expansions at Gatwick and Heathrow. If they were serious about climate there would be no hesitation in refusing all these projects. Then there’s the big orange slug that Starmer is reporting to today. The planet can’t afford any of this. Capitalist scum have already fekked the climate, it’s going to get destroyed at a far greater rate now and these absolute bstards are pulling out all the stops.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
800 demonstrators shut down Maersk headquarters (Photo via Palestinian Youth Movement/X)
Nearly 1,000 activists stage demonstration at the entrance to the headquarters of shipping giant Maersk in protest of weapons transport to Israel
On February 24, nearly 1,000 activists staged a demonstration to shut down the headquarters of Danish shipping giant Maersk in Copenhagen.
BREAKING
Today in Copenhagen 800 people from all over Europe shut down the main Maersk HQ for the day as part of the CRAC Camp under the Mask Off Maersk slogan “Cut Ties from Genocide”.
Police were outnumbered but quite brutal to those participating in the action. The crowd… pic.twitter.com/4II83Eo8Jt
The pro-Palestine demonstrators were protesting Maersk’s shipment of arms to Israel, under the slogan of the international “Mask off Maersk” campaign, as part of a protest camp organized by the CRAC Collective. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg participated in the demonstration, saying that “we take it on ourselves because we know that these big companies are all about profit.”
The Palestinian Youth Movement launched the international “Mask off Maersk” campaign last year, targeting one of the largest shipping companies in the world. Maersk has shipped millions of tons of military cargo from the US to Israel since October 7, playing a key role in the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people.
Pro-Palestine demonstrators have launched actions against Maersk globally, including outside the Port of Elizabeth in New Jersey, a major site of weapons shipments to Israel. The campaign won a major victory in November of last year when Spain blocked two Maersk ships carrying military cargo bound from Israel from docking at the port of Algeciras.
Demonstrators blocked the entrance to Maersk’s headquarters for over four hours, demanding that the logistics giant stop transporting military shipments to the Zionist state, and end all contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Thunberg called on Maersk to “terminate all contracts and investment that support the genocide and occupation of Palestine.”
People hold up signs as they protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency outside of the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. on February 5, 2025. (Photo: Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images)
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” they wrote. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The 21 data scientists, engineers, and product managers were initially part of the United States Digital Service, established during the Obama administration. However, one of Trump’s first executive orders states that it “is hereby publicly renamed as the United States DOGE Service (USDS) and shall be established in the Executive Office of the President.”
As the AP detailed, “earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off,” leaving about 65 employees who “were integrated into DOGE’s government-slashing effort.” About a third of the spared workers—who previously worked for companies such as Amazon and Google—joined the mass resignation.
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” wrote the 21 staffers, according to the news agency. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they explained. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”
Their resignation letter sounds the alarm about recent interviews conducted by Musk loyalists that “created significant security risks,” noting that “several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability.”
The letter also criticizes the recent USDS layoffs that “focused on people in roles like designers, product managers, human resources, and contracting staff,” according to the AP, which cited interviews with current and former staff.
“These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, healthcare, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services,” the letter states. “Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and American’s data less safe.”
The firings at USDS are just part of Musk and Trump’s sweeping effort to slash government spending and the federal workforce.
“Musk clearly loves to depict DOGE as a lean, mean efficiency machine,” Intelligencer columnist Ed Kilgore wrote last week. “But it seems increasingly obvious that its efforts to reduce personnel levels and spending mostly reflect an ideology that treats whole areas of government as illegitimate and completely arbitrary reductions in force as a valuable end in themselves.”
Fueling such arguments, the APrevealed Tuesday that nearly 40% of the federal contracts the Trump administration has canceled won’t save any money. The Musk-led effort “published an updated list Monday of nearly 2,300 contracts that agencies terminated in recent weeks across the federal government,” the news agency reported. “Data published on DOGE’s ‘Wall of Receipts’ shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 794 in all, are expected to yield no savings.”
“It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective.” https://t.co/kFIwMAa8OU
Reporting on DOGE’s failures and the mass resignation came amid mixed messaging about a Saturday email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government’s human resources agency, ordering federal workers to respond by the end of Monday with five bullet points listing what they did last week. Musk said on his social media platform X that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
Then, Politico and The Washington Post reported Monday that the Trump administration had told federal department heads that they could direct staff to ignore the list requirement and Musk’s threat, and emails from agency leaders informing workers they should not respond began circulating on social media.
Further adding to the confusion, the president told reporters Monday afternoon that anyone who doesn’t reply would be “sort of semi-fired—or you’re fired,” and Musk later wrote on X: “Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
Meanwhile, a Monday guidance from OPM states in part that responses to the initial Saturday email “should be directed to agency leadership,” who “may exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion and should inform OPM of the categories of the employees excluded and reasons for exclusion.”
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that has pushed back on DOGE initiatives, said in a Monday statement that “Elon Musk’s latest email fiasco is yet another example of the chaotic and callous treatment of federal employees that has been the hallmark of Trump’s second term.”
“It was nothing but a cynical attempt to demean federal workers and terrorize them into quitting,” Kelley continued. “To be clear, federal employees report to the agencies who employ them through established chains of command. They do not report to OPM, ‘DOGE,’ and definitely not to Elon Musk.”
“I’m glad reality is teaching them the lessons they refuse to teach themselves on how to run a functional civil service,” the union leader added. “Make no mistake we will continue to hold Elon Musk and the entire Trump administration accountable for their illegal actions.”
While DOGE has hit some legal snags thanks to challenges from unions and other critics, the Trump administration has demonstrated a willingness to defy court orders and congressional Republicans are already targeting some federal judges with articles of impeachment for impeding the president’s agenda.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer was told to apologise after Ofgem approved a surprise 6.4 per cent rise in average energy bills set to hit working families and pensioners the hardest yesterday.
Sir Keir was accused of breaking general election pledge to slash bills by £300 after the energy regulator announced a rise of £111 from April to £1,849 a year for the typical household.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the third consecutive increase in the cap on gas and electricity charges “is a cruel increase which is going to hit the elderly and low-paid workers the hardest.
“How can this be acceptable when energy companies are making billions in profits and millions of people are struggling to keep warm?
“The government should be making sure that everyone in the UK is able to stay warm, not making it harder.
“It can start by reversing its disastrous policy of cutting the winter fuel allowance and by returning key energy companies to public ownership, starting with the National Grid.”
