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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

@mcdowall.me

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 2d

This morning I have written to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice @angelaconstance.bsky.social MSP to register our concern over plans by the Home Secretary to provide new protest policing powers to police forces in England and Wales and to ascertain if the CabSec intends to mirror this in Scots law.

Audio version of letter is linked on the second post. The link to the audio version is: https://tinyurl.com/cabsecjustice

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Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Gemma Clark 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸 @gemmaclark.bsky.social · 2d

It’s Banned Books Week. This documentary is terrifying and you should watch it. It’s about the far right targeting librarians (including with violence). I know teachers in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 who have been targeted. The homegrown fascists use this playbook #TheLibrarians www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Four - Storyville, The Librarians

Documentary about the US librarians who are risking their safety to defend free speech.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Maggie Chapman MSP (she/her) @maggiechapman.bsky.social · 1h

😭

Goodbye to the slender-billed curlew, officially declared extinct today.

This is the first extinction from mainland Europe in centuries.

Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 7h

Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.

Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 2h

The GOP has a short memory, all this bloviation about concern over federal law enforcement not being paid during #shutdown when they turned their backs on LE officers killed and injured during the Capitol insurrection. Then their leader issued blanket pardons to those who attacked Capitol Police.

Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 20h

This article is spot on about the UK's descent into anti-trans hysteria. In 8 years, they went from the conservatives trying to make it easier for trans folks to self attest gender to a liberal government implementing a bathroom ban by fiat.

www.liberalcurrents.com/britains-bat...

Britain’s Bathroom Ban

The UK has gone from a bathroom ban being unthinkable to a Labour government implementing an extraordinarily authoritarian one—without a vote.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

WG Saraband 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇵🇹 @wgsaraband.bsky.social · 7h

Have a look through my website wgsaraband.com and get yourself some handmade, unique art made with all the strengths, faults and emotions of an actual human being.

Added bonus of supporting an independent Portuguese-Scottish artist 😉

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Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 15h

"30-year-old conservative lawyer and activist who is Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with federal employee whistleblower complaints and discrimination" cancelled his colleague's hotel room so she would be forced to stay with him.
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

In late July, Paul Ingrassia, the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security, arrived at a Ritz-Carlton in Orlando with a lower-ranking female colleague and others from their department. When the group reached the front desk, the woman learned she didn’t have a hotel room.

Ingrassia then informed her that she would be staying with him, according to five administration officials familiar with the episode. Eventually the woman discovered that Ingrassia had arranged ahead of time to have her hotel room canceled so she would have to stay with him, three of those officials said.

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 15h

I had absolutely no idea that health insurance was so expensive in the US. I ignorantly and naively assumed that the ACA would mean coverage would be so much more affordable and within easy reach of everyone.

Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 15h

$1300 (nearly £980) per month for health insurance cover! Cover for a single person, not a family! We don’t realise just how lucky we are in Scotland and rUK.

💀💩L @jweland.bsky.social · 19h

Mine is increasing 25% for 2026. Will have to pay $1300 for single coverage a month.

Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 19h

1/ Listen: the people who can’t afford ACA hikes or are getting kicked off Medicare are the priority. But…last year my company saw a 17% increase in healthcare costs. This year we are projecting 20%.

Every year for idk a decade has been at least 10%

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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 16h

Still amazed that the Vatican has been more responsive to the threat Trump represents than the vast majority of American institutions.

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Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

BladeoftheSun @bladeofthes.bsky.social · 19h

Deafening applause as Zack Polanski tells Zia Yusuf that people's concern over immigration is because he spends all his time spreading misinformation and fear.

#bbcqt

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Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 1d

Most Americans say Trump has improperly used his office to:
💠Punish those who say things he does not like (66%)
💠Encourage federal investigations of his political opponents (62%)
💠Enrich himself or his friends and family (61%)

new @pewresearch.org findings

Most Americans think Trump is trying to exercise more power than previous presidents

49% of U.S. adults say Trump is trying to exercise more presidential power than previous presidents and that this is bad for the country.

www.pewresearch.org

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 23h

Can’t help but feeling this whole paracetamol and autism nonsense is just another way of men being able to blame women.

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Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Melissa Eco-Zealot 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 @melissapudding.bsky.social · 23h

And why are men so much wiser about pregnancy or any health issue a woman might have?

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 23h

Since when did anyone keep a baby “…in [their] placenta”?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23h

RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

celebration this year alongside Charles and his wife Camilla. We can’t allow these people to continuously brush off criticism. There needs to be justice and that only comes when the words of survivors are not only sought, but heard.

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

the defence of his friend, the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew still lives in the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, property owned by the Crown. Despite public claims that King Charles has moved to push Andrew to the periphery, he took part in an intimate Easter church…

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

And of course this isn’t simply an issue in the US but within the UK too. With the late Queen Elizabeth reportedly paying £2million towards a civil damages claim relating to the part her son Prince Andrew played in the sexual exploitation of the late Virginia Giuffre and…

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

preservation let survivors down when they were made aware of it but dismissed the voice of survivors. This isn’t purely about the abuse itself but about the infrastructure and silence that protected Epstein and others and acted to further the harm.

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

The only way to secure justice for those survivors who were and in many ways still are exploited, is to vigorously pursue those who knew about the abuse and did nothing, those who took part in the abuse and the efforts to conceal it and those who owing to a warped sense of loyalty or self…

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

CSA has a corrosive effect on survivors lives and has an enduring impact which can and often does cut right the way across a person’s life. While people argue about names in a book, those survivors are forgotten and become cannon fodder in political games over the mere custody of the files.

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

of powerful and well connected men but often at their instance. Epstein was protected and insulated from the consequences for his disgraceful criminal conduct for so many years because he was only too happy to exploit children as form of entertainment for these well connected and powerful men.

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

A lot of smoke and mirrors and ducking and diving over the files of Epstein. The shocking reality is that a known sexual predator was not only permitted to engage in the abuse and exploitation of children across the globe but was able to do so not only within the sight and knowledge…

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Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA @mcdowall.me · 1d

💙

Reposted by Rob McDowall AMRSPH MIHSCM FRSA

Peter Morley ♿️ @petermorley.bsky.social · 1d

My morning message of inspiration. I may be very ill, but I am still fighting against this authoritarian regime. Please fight with me. NEVER GIVE UP!

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