The media’s past USAID sob stories were bad enough, but this one takes the case and a variety of other food products too. Not because I find it hard to believe that USAID wasted money on this garbage, but that someone at CNN decided to greenlight a story assuming that your average taxpayer thinks people making an Amazon Prime show should be entitled to their money. And agonize that they’re not getting it.
Styling itself as an heir to Anthony Bourdain’s legacy, “The Envoy Show” aims to spotlight the seven “food wonders” of the world while examining how food is stimulating local economies in its upcoming freshman season. “The Envoy Show” is set to premiere on Amazon’s Prime Video in summer 2025.
But the show has hit a snag before even debuting. The media start-up’s first episode was approved for sponsorship with funds from the US Agency for International Development during the Biden administration, but it still hasn’t seen a dime. “The Envoy Show” has been left to foot the entire bill, straining its start-up coffers without the promised government assistance.
And somehow this is not a story about USAID wasting money.
Amazon has plenty of money. It can afford to cover its own shows. Plenty of Americans are struggling and we’re supposed to be upset that some show isn’t getting taxpayer funding.
“Wild surprise,” Anne Marie Hagerty, who co-founded the show with Rachael Scott, told CNN. “Now we’re on the hook for paying people that the government was going to pay.”
The government doesn’t pay people. Taxpayers do.
Why are Anne Marie and Rachael Scott entitled to my money and yours so they can make a TV show?
During the Biden administration’s final months, USAID and trade group Prosper Africa green-lit funding for the fonio episode… Hagerty followed up with ATI on January 20, noting that the payment had yet to arrive. She was told that ATI was investigating. That same day, Trump was inaugurated into the Oval Office and signed the executive order that froze all foreign assistance.
So it was actually the Biden administration that hadn’t provided payment. And once the election happened, the show should have prepared for a turnover that would end the woke giveaways.
They didn’t. That’s on them.
“By the time it became clear the payment wasn’t coming, we were already too deep into production,” Scott said, stressing that they were given every confidence the money was on the way as late as January 22.
Was Rachael Scott unaware of Trump’s platform or DOGE? Or did she choose to go on spending money while believing Trump wasn’t serious?
More than 50 days after Trump announced the USAID freeze, Scott and Hagerty still don’t know whether they will ever receive the sponsorship funds.
Really? They still haven’t figured it out after USAID got taken apart that we’re no longer in the business of funding random woke nonsense?
But, for now, USAID funding for “The Envoy Show” — along with thousands of programs that provide relief globally — will remain in limbo.
Just imagine all the other Amazon shows that aren’t getting made because USAID isn’t throwing taxpayer money around anymore.
The horror. The humanity. The unimaginable suffering.
A Culinary Show for todays specially Roast Sloth after all this Animal is on the Menu of all Predators like Harpy Eagles Jaguares and Anacondas. And why are they still supporting t his useless mess they call USAID?
For several decades the American tax payers have funded various terrorist organizations and tyrannical regimes around the world. Most egregiously, American tax payer dollars is also spent on the care and maintenance of the tsunami of illegal aliens that have flooded our country and we were, until recently, also indirectly funding Hamas, a known terrorist organization.
In light of all that, as an avowed cynic it’s not worth the bother to get ruffled over some tax payer funded culinary show on Amazon. Wasting tax payers money on superfluous bullsh*t is business as usual in Washington DC and within the deep state and it’s unrealistic to expect it to stop anytime soon or in the foreseeable future.
Besides, why should they care anyway? It’s “other people’s money” they’re wasting. Moreover, the deepest pockets are always those of other people; not yours.
Anthony Bourdain. I hated that guy. I hated his show, too. I wouldn’t eat his food.
I’d rather watch the test pattern. At least that had a real American in it.
You know you were up late when that shit came on in Southern California. We had seven TV channels even back before cable and wifi and shit. Thanks for the black and white TV, stepdad. I blame you for the insomnia, too.