Robby Soave and Christian Britschgi kick off this week’s episode of Freed Up with a look at California’s socialist elections and Los Angeles’ worsening homelessness problem. Then, they discuss why socialism keeps failing, Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R–Texas) claim that he is “quite libertarian,” and the U.K.’s decision to ban Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur.
Later, they break down Graham Platner’s growing list of scandals, debate whether Dracula is really a romance story, and consider when science and religion come into conflict. Finally, they talk about Robby’s struggles as a light sleeper, revisit the moment COVID-19 experts betrayed the public’s trust, examine how annual homelessness counts are calculated, and close with Robby’s memory of former President Barack Obama speaking at his university commencement.
0:00—The socialist elections in California
4:50—The Los Angeles homeless problem and Spencer Pratt
Trillions of taxpayer dollars flow through the federal government every year, and a lot of them don’t end up where they are supposed to go.
During the 2025 fiscal year, the federal government lost an estimated $186 billion to “improper payments,” according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Most often, those improper payments are the result of errors that resulted in the government “paying someone who was ineligible for federal assistance,” the GAO reports. Since the office started tracking improper payments in 2003, those mistakes have cost taxpayers more than $3 trillion.
“Given the magnitude of these estimates, it is imperative that agencies prioritize reducing improper payments,” the GAO wrote in a letter to Congress that accompanied the report.
That doesn’t really seem to be happening. As the GAO notes, there are 13 programs across seven federal agencies that have reported improper payment rates of 10 percent or higher in two consecutive years. Six of those programs have had improper payment rates over 10 percent for at least four consecutive years.
That’s a time period that crosses parts of both the Trump and Biden administrations, during which those programs have, essentially, wasted at least $1 out of every $10 the taxpayers have provided.
The two major federal healthcare programs were responsible for the largest shares of improper payments last year. Medicare, the federal program that covers healthcare costs for the elderly, had $57 billion in improper payments, according to the GAO. Medicaid, the joint federal-state program for the poor, accounted for about $37 billion in improper payments. Together, that was about 51 percent of all improper payments across the federal government last year.
However, the $186 billion figure tallied up by the GAO is almost certainly a low-ball estimate, because not every part of the federal government is required to report its estimated improper payments.
For example, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not report improper payments made through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the federal government’s main welfare program for the needy. As the GAO explains, those figures aren’t reported because TANF spending is handled by the states—federal dollars are delivered in the form of block grants to state governments, where they supplement state-level welfare spending—and HHS lacks the necessary authority to request the data on improper payments.
Congress could change that anytime it wants, and the GAO has asked lawmakers to do that. They have not.
The GAO estimates that the total amount of improper payments increased by about $24 billion in 2025 over 2024. That’s despite the Trump administration’s widely publicized effort at cracking down on waste and fraud via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). That means DOGE ultimately failed to reduce the total amount of money the government spentand failed to reduce wasteful spending in the form of improper payments.
In large part, that’s because DOGE failed to look in the right places—the places that entities like the GAO have been highlighting for years in reports like the one released this week.
Improper payments have been, as the GAO reports, a “long-standing, significant problem” in the federal government. Probably the most direct way to solve it is to have the government simply spend less money on everything.
The Debug Project at Google (parent company Alphabet) aims to drastically reduce the populations of mosquitoes in California and Florida. Hooray! Debug is seeking an experimental use permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release 64 million lab-grown male mosquitoes (they don’t bite) that are infected with the Wolbachia bacteria over two years. The infected males breed with wild (biting and disease-carrying) females who later lay eggs that do not hatch. The result: a mosquito population crash resulting in far less risk of people acquiring mosquito-borne illnesses.
Spreading lab-grown, Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes as a way to drastically reduce the populations of disease-carrying mosquitoes has been done successfully for many years all over the world. The result has been steep reductions in mosquito-borne illnesses in place like Northern Australia, Singapore, and Brazil.
The technique has also been successfully deployed in various places in the United States. In fact, Google’s Debug worked with the Kentucky-based company MosquitoMate on project in which they released Wolbachia-infected male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes for three years in partnership with the Fresno County Mosquito Control District in California. This invasive (and now pervasive in the U.S.) species of mosquito is the vector for numerous maladies including dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and yellow fever. The result was that at peak mosquito season, the number of biting female Aedes aegypti in treated Fresno neighborhoods dropped by more than 95 percent.
MosquitoMate (Slogan: “Buy mosquitoes…bye mosquitoes”) also offers Wolbachia-infected males of the Asian Tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. This fearsome invasive species hunts and bites aggressively throughout the day and continues its spread across the United States (including in our yard). Tiger mosquitoes are vectors for West Nile virus, as well as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. California recently reported several locally acquired cases of dengue fever. Males from both species of MosquitoMate’s mosquitoes are already registered and approved for commercial use in all U.S. states and territories by the EPA.
Debug has developed AI and robotic technologies that make breeding and sex sorting mosquitoes much cheaper and easier. Debug’s plan is simply to apply the Wolbachia-infection technology to the even more pervasive southern house mosquito (Culex quinquefasciatus), which can transmit diseases including West Nile virus, St. Louis encephalitis, and lymphatic filariasis.
The EPA has already registered Google’s Wolbachia-infected male southern house mosquitoes for use in Hawaii as a tool to protect endangered bird species from mosquitoes carrying avian malaria. The California and Florida releases are tests of their wider efficacy in suppressing disease-carrying mosquito species.
Naturally, Luddites oppose this innovation. For example, anonymous comments on Debug’s application at the EPA: “We are not experimental rats. Greedy corporations should stay out of our communities,” and “Risks of these mosquitoes have not been sufficiently studied, and the bacteria-infected mosquitoes could have harmful impacts to the health of people, animals, and the environment.” In its comments, Hawaii Unites, long-time opponent to Google’s efforts to prevent the spread of avian malaria by mosquitoes, asserts, “These mosquitoes are an experiment that could harm the health of Hawai’i’s people, wildlife, and ecosystems.”
In contradiction to these assertions stands the 2022 comprehensive federal environmental impact statement that analyzed the possible health and ecological risks of the mosquito release program in Hawaii. That report concluded that releasing millions of Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes was safe and would not “significantly affect the quality of the human environment.” In its decision to register Debug’s mosquitoes, the EPA found that they “will not cause unreasonable adverse effects to human health or the environment.”
Numerous additional studies and evaluations have found that the release of these lab-grown mosquitoes does not harm human or animal health and has minimal ecological effects. After all, Wolbachia naturally infects roughly 50 percent of all insect and arthropod species.
As salutary as the disease prevention benefits from deploying these mosquitoes doubtlessly is, bite prevention itself is not to be dismissed. All of us have been made miserable by swarms of mosquitoes while trying to enjoy picnics, barbecues, and porch conversations. For example, Floridians averaged more than four mosquito bites per week in a 2025 study in which volunteers tracked their mosquito bites using a smartphone Bite Diary app.
So Google, don’t stop in Florida and California: Please feel free to drop by our yard in Virginia at any time.
Mapping America’s Robotaxi Boom As Driverless Fleets Hit More Cities
Robotaxi deployments are entering the scaling phase across major U.S. cities as Waymo, Lyft, Tesla, Zoox, and other autonomous vehicle firms push fleets deep into cities.
The autonomous rideshare market remains in its early chapters, but the direction of travel is clear even to the modest observer: robotaxis are moving from the test phase to becoming an increasingly common sight on the roads.
With that comes the general public capturing these robotaxis doing some pretty weird stuff in the wild, such as bottlenecking in a quiet Atlanta neighborhood last month…
The latest update on commercial AV deployments comes from Goldman analysts led by Eric Sheridan, who told clients these deployments are gaining momentum.
Based on NHTSA crash data from July 2025 through mid-April 2026, along with Waymo and Tesla disclosures on miles and trips, Tesla robotaxis had an accident every 100,000 to 120,000 miles, while Waymo had an accident every 150,000 to 175,000 miles.
Tesla’s Austin fleet includes a mix of vehicles with and without safety monitors, while Waymo operates commercially across more cities and has a much larger fleet.
Sheridan estimates that Waymo’s fleet size is over 3,800 vehicles (including 577 in Texas), while Tesla’s fleet in Texas is around 42 vehicles.
SensorTower data for the US market shows that Waymo’s app usage continued to expand in April, though momentum appears to be slowing. Monthly active users rose 20% year over year, a slower pace than in recent months.
Announced current and future deployments
Sheridan’s ratings and price targets on robotaxi or robotaxi-aligned companies:
Increased deployments will likely usher in rising regulatory pressure from local, state, and even federal governments. We wouldn’t be surprised if taxi or human drivers revolted at some point. Or at least some left-wing NGO mount a pressure campaign with paid protests.
Federal safety agencies are currently investigating Waymo incidents, New York backed away from allowing commercial robotaxi service this year, and metro areas such as Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco are considering restrictions.
The emerging problem for robotaxi firms is that, even if AVs crash less often per mile than human drivers, highly visible accidents in unusual real-world conditions are becoming a political and regulatory headwind.
Consider this before the next Waymo ride.
What this Waymo post is doing isn’t really about Waymo. It’s not about sanitation, or sex work, or operational edge cases. That’s just the wrapper. The real function of the post is emotional routing. It takes a complex transition — autonomous systems entering messy human reality… pic.twitter.com/Jt87RkG64x
Zelensky Pens Lengthy Letter To Putin: ‘Enough Of War, I Am Proposing A Meeting’
On Thursday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin in a rare open letter sent to the Russian leader. It said Ukraine is also ready for a “full ceasefire.”
“Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us – and you. I am proposing a meeting,” Zelensky said in the letter. “Ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations,” he added.
The letter, which is somewhat lengthy at one point says, “The choice is yours now. Enough of war” and then spells out that “Ukraine proposes to end this war.”
“This must be done honestly, with dignity, and with guarantees that the war will not be reignited,” Zelensky added. And then interestingly, “We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention.“
The new letter was issued just Europe’s most influential powers of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are trying to again jump-start Ukraine war peace talks, collectively operating as the E3 group.
They seek to implement a new framework aimed at engaging Russian President Vladimir Putin in direct negotiations to end the war. Reuters on Wednesday reports that “A window for dialogue is slowly opening between Russia and Europe on Ukraine, although it is likely to be months before talks can begin, a German government official said at a briefing on Wednesday.”
It seems this window of opportunity is based to some degree on perceptions that the war tide and momentum is finally shifting in Ukraine’s favor, given the increasing effectiveness of Ukraine’s devastating cross-border drone attacks of late.
European leaders apparently view the current battlefield and political dynamics as having strengthened Kiev’s bargaining position, creating what they believe is the optimal moment to press Moscow for talks. It seems that Zelensky agrees, and believes that it’s time to get back to the negotiating table.
Putin on sidelines of the ongoing St. Petersburg International Economic Forum: We can control whole Donbass region AND strike a deal. One thing doesn’t contradict the other, why would you think that it does? — Putin to AP News Director
We can control whole Donbass region AND strike a deal. One thing doesn’t contradict the other, why would you think that it does? — Putin to AP News Directorhttps://t.co/T9H7QsH7g4pic.twitter.com/9waCc6M6oO
Putin also said Thursday that his view is there’s no need to stop fighting in order to start talks.
Below is Zelensky’s full newly published letter, kept in the original formatting, and as issued in an official English version.
* * *
Open Letter
To the President of the Russian Federation
From the President of Ukraine
When you came to power in Russia more than 26 years ago, many people in Ukraine viewed you positively. That is how it was. But that is now in the past.
Now, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians view it positively that our long-range drones paid a visit to the opening of your forum in St. Petersburg, covering a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers. As you know very well, that distance is not the limit of our capabilities.
For 26 years, your time in power has completely changed the agenda of relations between Ukraine and Russia. From discussions about trade and other civilian matters, our nations have moved to talking almost exclusively about strikes and losses.
You have spent nearly half of your 26 years in power in Russia waging war against Ukraine.
Whatever you may say about NATO, geopolitics, or the Russian language, this war is your personal choice — a war without a real cause. That is how history will remember it.
Those years could have been very different.
We often hear that you are comfortable with this war. Of course, not in those cases when it comes to the security of your residence in Valdai or your parade in Moscow. Your own life is valuable to you.
But now we can all see that Russians are finally becoming less comfortable with this reality — with the fact that the war is bringing more and more negative consequences to Russia.
They do not like our drones and missiles.
They do not like gasoline shortages and constantly rising prices.
They do not like constant restrictions.
They do not like your intention to launch a second wave of mobilization in order to expand the war into another direction in Ukraine or to use it against other countries neighboring Russia.
They do not like the fact that there is no end in sight to your war.
Yes, you can still force Russians to exist this way. But your resources are shrinking significantly.
You will not have enough money or political capital to keep buying the loyalty of Russians the way you have for the past 26 years.
And we will do everything we can to ensure that the world helps bring that moment closer.
As you yourself like to say, “we need to run the numbers.”
Yesterday, I received a report on the losses of your army on the front in Ukraine during May. Once again, the number exceeded 30,000 Russian soldiers killed and seriously wounded. We have been maintaining that level month after month, and we have video confirmation of every one of your losses — these are not empty claims.
We know that 63 percent of your battlefield losses are killed, while only 37 percent are wounded. In the 21st century, no army can afford such a ratio. And the share of those killed will continue to grow.
It is not as if we in Ukraine are concerned about the fate of Russian soldiers after everything your war has brought to our country.
But I do care about Ukrainians.
We are losing our people, and every loss is painful to us. Even when the ratio of Ukrainian losses to Russian losses is one to five or one to six, it still matters greatly.
It also matters that you regularly postpone, every few months, your own deadlines for capturing our regions — especially the Donetsk region. And you will not capture it this year either.
But we in Ukraine do not want a permanent war. We know very well that life without war is infinitely better. And we want to achieve that.
I am convinced that the majority of Russians would respond positively to this as well — and you know it.
Many did not believe that Ukraine would be able to hold out for so long. You did not believe it. And those who advised you did not believe it either. That was a mistake.
You did not expect full-scale resistance from Ukraine, and you did not foresee that things would go this far. Yet here we all are — in the fifth year of this full-scale war.
Do not be afraid to take the path out of this war. That is the main thing that is required of you now.
Ukraine has preserved its independence. And it will preserve it. Despite all predictions to the contrary.
We have united many around the world to stand with Ukraine and against you. We found the weapons and the financing we needed.
We receive support. You receive sanctions. And this will continue until there is justice for Ukraine — the justice we seek and the justice that can be achieved.
We will not allow those who are trying to convince you that sanctions against Russia will be significantly eased, and that support for Ukraine will be significantly reduced, without any meaningful change in your position toward Ukraine, to succeed. The example of Orban shows how those who choose to help Russia in its war against us end in disgrace.
Ukraine has endured harsh winters while you tried to destroy our energy system. We held firm — and even in darkness, the resilience of Ukrainians remained intact.
We brought the war onto your territory, and you would not have been able to cope with it without North Korea’s help. You are the first ruler of Russia to turn to Pyongyang for assistance.
And today you are fully dependent on China — also for the first time in Russia’s history.
You believed Ukrainians would not have the strength to defend themselves. Yet today, our people are helping our partners in the Middle East and the Gulf build their own defenses.
You hoped for internal unrest in Ukraine. Instead, it was your own military formations that staged a mutiny against you. June 23 will mark another anniversary of that event, and silence will not erase this fact from history.
And now it is you whom your own officials, businessmen, and propagandists look at with obvious fatigue. The world can see it.
The world has not grown tired of Ukraine, as you long hoped it would. But there is growing fatigue with Russia — even among those in the wider world who help you bypass sanctions and keep your economy afloat.
You cannot fail to notice it. After 26 years in power, age is beginning to take its toll. And with time, the fatigue with you will only grow.
We have seen intelligence reports showing that you are now considering plans to continue the war into 2027 and 2028. We also know that you hope ballistic missiles will achieve for you what everything else has failed to achieve. You want to draw Belarus even deeper into this war, and we are now forced to prepare for that as well. We see that you are trying to orchestrate something around Transnistria. Your propagandists threaten, in one way or another, every country neighboring Russia. Do you really want to go through all of this?
The choice is yours now.
Enough of war.
Ukraine proposes to end this war.
This must be done honestly, with dignity, and with guarantees that the war will not be reignited.
We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention.
Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you.
I am proposing a meeting.
Everyone heard your representatives, smiling, say that I could supposedly come to Moscow. But after these 26 years, there is nothing for a Ukrainian leader to do in your capital — just as there is nothing for a Russian leader to do in Kyiv.
There are countries that have traditionally hosted leaders to resolve issues of war and peace. Switzerland, Türkiye, the countries of the Arab world — many are able and willing to host such a meeting.
It is leaders who resolve the key issues. That has always been the case, and it always will be.
I propose to set a clear date for such a meeting.
We have heard that you were promised in Alaska the resolution of certain issues concerning Ukraine and Europe. But you can see for yourself that Ukrainian and European issues are not decided in Anchorage.
Other agreed participants could join the bilateral track to be established between us.
Since the war is taking place in Europe, and since Ukraine needs security guarantees, while you also seek security guarantees for yourself, it would be logical to involve those who can genuinely serve as guarantors.
We believe Europe should be part of this process — those who truly have the capacity to influence the situation.
We also believe that the United States must be part of the process. This is what could help shape a new security architecture for our part of the world.
We’ve already experienced many agreements with Russia, including the Minsk agreements, that ultimately failed. That is why we must first find direct answers between us to the questions that remain, and not hide from difficult issues behind formulas, technical working groups, or endless time lost in shuttle diplomacy.
Your war has permanently set Ukraine and Russia apart.
The front line today is the line from which diplomacy must begin.
Ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations. This is standard practice, and current developments around Iran only reinforce that point. An attempt to establish real silence is the best way to begin talking to one another. We believe it would not simply be an attempt, but a real ceasefire — if that is what you want.
You know that the United States has the capability to monitor a ceasefire along the line where hostilities stop.
Ukraine is ready for an all-for-all exchange of prisoners of war, and this could become a good prologue to ending the war.
Serious steps must be taken to return civilians and children who were taken away during the war.
We must determine what kind of future awaits the generations of Ukrainians and Russians who will come after us.
If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence. We will have those who support us.
But you, too, will have to fight much harder for your own existence — not Russia’s, but your own. And this is not a threat from me or from Ukraine. It is a fact of Russian history that you know well: when Russia grows tired, change comes.
We can work toward that fatigue.
You can stop your war.
Eternal memory to all those whose lives were taken by this war.
Glory to Ukraine!
* * *
Despite the long appeal, President Putin and the Kremlin have demonstrated a willingness to allow a long war to drag on, and are unlikely to be moved. Putin has said there’s no need for a truce unless a deal is already close or about to be signed. But the two sides aren’t any closer to being at the negotiating table as yet.
“Bring Your Own Capacity” – Google And Voltus To Deploy Virtual Power Plant
Google signed a three-year Bring Your Own Capacity (BYOC) agreement with Voltus for up to 100 MW of accredited distributed capacity in the PJM Interconnection. Voltus will aggregate batteries, smart thermostats, electric vehicles, and other flexible assets from homes and businesses into a Google-funded Virtual Power Plant (VPP).
When the grid needs relief, the software dispatches those resources in concert. Participants get paid, and Google gets capacity without waiting for traditional interconnection queues.
A VPP is not a physical plant at all. It is coordinated software that turns thousands of small, customer-sited resources into something that behaves like dispatchable generation. Distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar panels, batteries, smart thermostats, and flexible loads already sitting on the grid become a decentralized fleet.
Instead of building another transmission line or expensive peaker plant that sits idle most of the year, the VPP squeezes more value out of what already exists. Brattle Group analysis suggests better utilization of existing infrastructure could save U.S. consumers over $100 billion this decade.
Voltus has positioned itself as the leading operator in this space. The company manages more than 7.5 GW of DERs across all nine North American wholesale markets and launched its BYOC offering specifically to help large loads shortcut interconnection delays. Google is the first named hyperscaler customer. The deal runs in PJM, the largest U.S. grid operator and one already feeling the strain of AI-driven load growth.
This move fits the broader pattern of Google methodically assembling exposure to nearly every generation and flexibility technology currently in play. Considering the alternative is to just sit back and watch grids like PJM start to go black in the years ahead…
On the firm, always-on side, the company struck a deal with NextEra to restart the 615 MW Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa. Google is also looking to offtake power from Kairos’ molten salt reactors in Tennessee.
For next-generation geothermal, Google has a long-running partnership with Fervo Energy. The Nevada pilot is already feeding carbon-free power to Google data centers, and the companies expanded via a Clean Transition Tariff structure with NV Energy for an additional 115 MW. Google also holds PPAs with Ormat under the same tariff framework.
On the renewables and storage front, Alphabet closed its $4.75 billion acquisition of Intersect Power earlier this year. Intersect develops co-located data center and energy infrastructure, including large-scale solar and battery storage projects.
Google has maintained a steady drumbeat of wind and solar PPAs for years; the Intersect deal accelerates co-location and gives the company more direct control over project development timelines.
Long-duration batteries even caught Google’s interest with the Form Energy deal for iron-air technology and the batteries that will likely participate in the new Voltus VPP.
The through-line is speed. PJM and other grids are not adding transmission and firm generation fast enough to match announced data center builds. Hyperscalers have responded with every available lever: restarting nuclear, advancing geothermal, buying developers outright, and now directly funding distributed capacity.
Lights Out For Sleep Number, Shares Crash On Potential Bankruptcy Filing
Sleep Number Corporation shares crashed after multiple outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, reported that the mattress and bedding retailer is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
WSJ said that Sleep Number is “expected to use the Chapter 11 process to restructure its balance sheet while continuing operations. The reorganization could also include a potential sale of the business.”
As of late 2024, Sleep Number had 640 retail stores across the US, with a footprint actively shrinking in recent years.
The company has been hit hard by a confluence of factors – think higher interest rates have reduced demand for big-ticket items, like a $5,000 bed, industry pressure, and tariffs. Plus, let’s not forget that all the demand was pulled forward during the easy-money bubble of the Covid era.
Revenue fell 16% in 2025 to $1.4 billion …
… while the stock has plunged about 97% over the past four months to roughly 32 cents.
WSJ noted that Sleep Number recently hired Guggenheim Securities to evaluate opportunities to strengthen its balance sheet and improve liquidity. The struggling retailer has secured $55 million in additional liquidity through a new $25 million term loan and $30 million in added flexibility from existing lenders.
Our read-through: another consumer discretionary story has collapsed, with demand for big-ticket home goods continuing to sink under elevated interest rates and a tapped-out consumer nearing the end of the tax-refund sugar high.
Heavily Shorted Rumble Soars After Landing “Largest Customer Commitment To Date” In $270M AI Cloud Deal
Shares of the free-speech video platform and cloud-services company Rumble soared in premarket trading after it announced in an 8-K filing that it had signed a multi-year, $270 million deal with a third-party cloud customer for dedicated GPU cloud capacity powered by Nvidia Blackwell B300 systems.
The deal, announced Thursday morning, is Rumble’s largest customer commitment to date and signals the video platform’s push deeper into AI infrastructure and cloud computing services.
“Rumble entered into a multi-year, $270 million agreement with a third-party cloud customer, representing Rumble’s largest customer commitment to date,” the company wrote in the filing.
The filing continued, “Under the agreement, the customer has committed to purchase dedicated GPU cloud capacity from Rumble powered by NVIDIA Blackwell B300 systems,” adding, “The agreement includes potential for greater value and extended length based on market success.”
Rumble went public through a SPAC merger with CF Acquisition Corp. VI, a Cantor Fitzgerald–backed blank-check company. The deal closed in mid-September 2022, and the shares began trading on Nasdaq.
Since then, shares have traded sideways, unable to break above $16 resistance, and have plunged as low as $3.39 in early 2024.
News of the AI cloud-capacity deal sent shares soaring 14% in premarket trading.
Notably Rumble is heavily shorted, with 28% of the float short, or about 24.5 million shares. Days to cover stand around 7.1.
What’s notable about Rumble is that it’s no longer a free-speech YouTube alternative, but is now shifting toward AI infrastructure and GPU cloud services.
Trillions of taxpayer dollars flow through the federal government every year, and a lot of them don’t end up where they are supposed to go.
During the 2025 fiscal year, the federal government lost an estimated $186 billion to “improper payments,” according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Most often, those improper payments are the result of errors that resulted in the government “paying someone who was ineligible for federal assistance,” the GAO reports. Since the office started tracking improper payments in 2003, those mistakes have cost taxpayers more than $3 trillion.
“Given the magnitude of these estimates, it is imperative that agencies prioritize reducing improper payments,” the GAO wrote in a letter to Congress that accompanied the report.
That doesn’t really seem to be happening. As the GAO notes, there are 13 programs across seven federal agencies that have reported improper payment rates of 10 percent or higher in two consecutive years. Six of those programs have had improper payment rates over 10 percent for at least four consecutive years.
That’s a time period that crosses parts of both the Trump and Biden administrations, during which those programs have, essentially, wasted at least $1 out of every $10 the taxpayers have provided.
The two major federal healthcare programs were responsible for the largest shares of improper payments last year. Medicare, the federal program that covers healthcare costs for the elderly, had $57 billion in improper payments, according to the GAO. Medicaid, the joint federal-state program for the poor, accounted for about $37 billion in improper payments. Together, that was about 51 percent of all improper payments across the federal government last year.
However, the $186 billion figure tallied up by the GAO is almost certainly a low-ball estimate, because not every part of the federal government is required to report its estimated improper payments.
For example, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not report improper payments made through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the federal government’s main welfare program for the needy. As the GAO explains, those figures aren’t reported because TANF spending is handled by the states—federal dollars are delivered in the form of block grants to state governments, where they supplement state-level welfare spending—and HHS lacks the necessary authority to request the data on improper payments.
Congress could change that anytime it wants, and the GAO has asked lawmakers to do that. They have not.
The GAO estimates that the total amount of improper payments increased by about $24 billion in 2025 over 2024. That’s despite the Trump administration’s widely publicized effort at cracking down on waste and fraud via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). That means DOGE ultimately failed to reduce the total amount of money the government spentand failed to reduce wasteful spending in the form of improper payments.
In large part, that’s because DOGE failed to look in the right places—the places that entities like the GAO have been highlighting for years in reports like the one released this week.
Improper payments have been, as the GAO reports, a “long-standing, significant problem” in the federal government. Probably the most direct way to solve it is to have the government simply spend less money on everything.
