Sweden Votes, Foreign Intelligence Infiltrates Twitter, Modern Slavery, Russia and US Elections

Giorgia Meloni far-right leader projected to be Italy’s first female prime minister.

Dan Lazare, journalist and author joins the show to talk about today’s election in Sweden. In Sweden, the country’s right-wing opposition bloc is in the lead with 98% of districts counted. It looks like they’re going to win - and the question is why. The vote is very close, but it looks like it will result in a change in government. The Sweden Democrats in particular, the farthest right party of the block, have received nearly 21% of the vote after a campaign focused on law and order issues and migration. Sweden has seen rising gun violence over the past decade, spent several years as the rape capital of the EU, and this year could see the most shootings ever, breaking the 2020 record.

Chris Garaffa, co-host of Covert Action Magazine’s Covert Action Bulletin podcast joins the show to talk about foreign intelligence agencies infiltrating Twitter. There was some explosive testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday when Twitter whistleblower and former security chief Pieter Zatko, known as “Mudge” testified that Twitter is “extremely vulnerable” to being infiltrated by foreign governments, and, indeed, it had accidentally hired at least one Chinese intelligence officer; that Twitter was “not afraid” of US regulators, but was afraid of foreign regulators; that Twitter collects personal information on its users, including phone numbers, locations, emails, and IP addresses; that Twitter executives aren’t even sure why this data is collected or what it’s used for; and that Twitter employees could take over the account of any user and tweet from it.

Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Daniel served as the foreign affairs, civil liberties, and defense/intel policy advisor to US Congressman Ron Paul, MD (R-Texas) from 2001 until Dr. Paul’s retirement at the end of 2012. McAdams joins the program to talk about the Washington Post reporting today that since 2014 Russia has funneled some $300 million to influence candidates and political parties around the world and to promote their alignment with Kremlin interests, particularly in Europe and Africa. The Biden Administration commissioned the study of Russian activities from the CIA and then declassified some of the report’s findings. But what the Administration hasn’t talked about is the billions of dollars that the US government has spent to influence candidates, political parties, and elections around the world, beginning with the 1948 Italian elections and running through some 86 countries over the next 74 years. Then they talk about the fight for the soul and future of the Republican party.

Terry Collingsworth, Executive Director of International Rights Advocates, and labor and human rights attorney specializing in trade and international labor rights issues joins the show to talk about modern day slavery. The UN this week released a grim report on modern slavery that found that forced labor and forced marriage have increased over the last five years. “Compared to 2016 global estimates, 10 million more people were in modern slavery in 2021, with women and children disproportionately vulnerable,” the report found. The report also noted that more than half of all forced labour and a quarter of all forced marriages can be found in upper-middle income or high-income countries.

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