Susan Feinberg, the Rutgers Professor who confronted Paul Ryan at a D.C. restaurant over the cost of a bottle of wine ordered by people at Ryan’s table, appeared on the Dom Giordano radio show in Philadelphia moments ago (h/t to a commenter).
I hope to have the audio soon, and will post it. The quotes below are my quick “live” transcriptions, they are substantively accurate although if any of the precise wording is off, I apologize.
Feinberg started out by recounting the events. She confirmed that one of the people at the table other than Ryan ordered the bottle of wine in question. She also tried to listen to the conversation at Ryan’s table, but could only hear part of it. She said she heard a part of the conversation at the Ryan table where someone said something “to the effect that liberals think that if you’re a millionaire you’ve done something wrong.”
Feinberg denied she was inebriated, having had half a bottle of wine over the course of dinner.
She confirmed that she said to Ryan’s table that a family of four making $10 an hour would not make as much in a week what the wine cost. “I asked him how he lived with himself … knowing that the policies he was proposing would be incredibly devastating to seniors ….”
Feinberg refused to say what her husband did. She justified her own state salary [she didn’t say it, but it’s $160,000 per year] and the fact that tuition is expensive at Rutgers by saying “I’m not out espousing policies that would gut health care for tens of millions of people” or “give vouchers to seniors.”
She said there was no zone of comfort for Ryan or other politicians. “I’m quite comfortable with it” referring to confronting Ryan at a restaurant.
She said Ryan would “basically take Medicare away” from people. She claimed that someone was “in the process of buying” Ryan until she confronted him. “How let them eat cake is that.”
She said that as to her $80 bottle of wine, she talked with her husband about whether it was too extravagant, but he insisted because it was her birthday. “If I’d seen that kind of excessive behavior by someone on the left I probably would have said something.”
“I don’t think that line of questioning is terribly useful” she said when Giordano asked her at what point the wine becomes too expensive.
When a listener called in to wonder why she’s not complaining about Obama family vacations that taxpayers pay for, Feinberg said “I guess I don’t think the situation is necessarily the same. The key issue with Ryan is that he is the architect [of a plan] gutting Medicare for seniors… and taking health care away from tens of millions of middle class and lower income Americans.”
Giordano questioned whether it would be okay for someone who votes “the right way” to order an expensive bottle of wine. Feinberg claimed she would have confronted Nancy Pelosi in the same situation.
A listener called in: “Who gave you the right to do what you did? In my opinion what you did was way over the line…”
Feinberg said “there is a law that does not allow members of Congress to accept gifts over $100….” “Paul Ryan should probably thank me that I reminded him that he wasn’t allowed to do that…. otherwise he would have been in violation of the law.”
Update: The Right Scoop has the full audio (also an excerpt at the link, but I suggest you listen to the whole thing):
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Comments
SU san – old Indian name for Horse’s Ass.
Wow. What a shining example of modern progressive sanctimony and arrogance.
Well said!
“give vouchers to seniors.” Lie. Ryan’s plan doesn’t do that. It doesn’t give you money to go out on your own. Once in Medicare, you are in.
“[of a plan] gutting Medicare for seniors…” Lie. Making it solvent is not “gutting it”. The Dem plan to let it go bankrupt or have the IPAB cut 1 Trillion is more akin to “gutting it”.
You’re losing the debate lefties/Statists/Democrats. That is why you are resorting to these tactics. You LOVE expensive wine. It makes you feel special when you are not. And if it were someone that agreed with you, you would be praising a fine choice in that wine.
Those days are over.
What a pathetic hypocrite. And my understanding is that Ryan paid for the wine himself. This arrogant, snoopy lib justifies eavesdropping on a private conversation and making a scene in a public place (a VERY posh restaurant) where she herself has just eaten (and sorry, but drinking a bottle of $80 wine effectively weakens her stance for frugality in the vino department). Did she ever decry Nancy Pelosi’s extravagance with her taxpayer-funded private jet when she was Speaker of the House, or the liquor-food bill of nearly $1,000 per week for two years on said fuel-guzzling jet, or taking family members on world vacations that Joe American paid for? No, of course not. Feinberg claims “she would have confronted Nancy Pelosi in the same situation.” Oh, really? That’s a load of hogwash. Feinberg has had more than two years to speak out against Pelosi’s sticking-it-to-taxpayers self-indulgences that cost thousands of dollars more than a bottle of expensive wine, and I’ve never heard her run off to a left-wing columnist to chastise SanFranNan, or Michelle Obama, or any other spendthrifts from the Left who are funded by the efforts and sweat of taxpayers.
Hypocrisy, thy name is liberalism.
Isn’t this woman 30 seconds beyond her 15 minutes of fame?
Dom G is a quality talker. It doesn’t surprise me that he got this harlot to spill her guts and let her embarrass herself before a Philadelphia audience (too bad, in some respects, that he’s not national, but he’s probably a little too Phillycentric to play in Peoria). His audience is pretty sharp, too.
Methinks it’s time for some of our friends in Central New Jersey to begin getting in her face on a regular basis. Drive her nuts (which, admittedly, wouldn’t be a far trip).
Feinberg “justifies” not protesting Obama’s far more lavish, taxpayer funded expenditures on the ground that Obama is not proposing what Ryan is supposedly proposing, but says she would confront Pelosi if Pelosi purchased the same wine? Profoundly stupid.
Not if Pelosi purchased the same wine but rather Feinberg “would have confronted Nancy Pelosi in the same situation,” that being a situation in which Feinberg disagreed w/ Pelosi’s politics.
This woman is a professor at Rutgers? What does she teach, Chaotic Reasoning 101?
Well, that’s true …
Obama is proposing letting Medicare bankrupt the country.
She reminds me of Judas Iscariot who complained when a woman wiped/”wasted” expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet soon before his death. “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” Of course he wasn’t really worried about the cost, but about lining his own pockets. Likewise, liberals aren’t really concerned with the poor, but in keeping the game going from which they benefit so greatly.
I’ll bet her teaching position (assuming she is a teaching professor and not another one of those who work on socialism lab work) is paid mostly by grants from the government.
“I don’t think that line of questioning is terribly useful” she said when Giordano asked her at what point the wine becomes too expensive.
Very clever way to avoid your obvious hypocrisy. Not.
Like I said before, Rutgers should be looking for a new econ prof, IMHO. Beclowning yourself, then doubling down. Well, perhaps that is what Rutgers wants.
Personally, I appreciate the information and questions on her income, the cost of the university classes at Rutgers, and such. She lives in the swamp of hypocrisy. She was just too drunk to “rise above” at the swanky, hi-dollar restaurant.
I wonder what her final bill was, including that $80 bottle of wine? And – how many bottles did they drink? Those $80 bottles add up pretty quick…..maybe even to $200 or $300 dollars. Just sayin’.
Like I said before, Rutgers should be looking for a new econ prof, IMHO. Beclowning yourself, then doubling down. Well, perhaps that is what Rutgers wants.
I would agree, but my guess is that the majority of the faculty at Rutgers are of the same political persuasion as Professor Feinberg, and suspect that she is more likely to get high fives all around than a scolding for the actions which would embarrass any sensible organization.
This is the latest addition to Al Gore’s four luxury homes … you know Al, the guy who would bring global economic development to a screeching halt, throwing millions into poverty to bravely confront (maybe not as brave as confronting a congressman sipping wine) the imaginary problem of global warming. Dig that crazy Sasquatch-sized carbon footprint.
LukeHandCool (who would only like to add … “Go get him, Susan!!” … and then it’s on to the humble abode of Mr. Two Americas and then the Taiwan-sized digs of Mr. perpetually-concerned-that-we’re-not-emulating-China-enough Thomas Friedman … we’ll get ’em all girl, one at a time).
1. I linked to her cv in a previous thread. Someone whose business career went nowhere fast, who spent ten years as an assistant professor, who just got tenure if she has it at all, who teaches ‘Love and Money’, who could care less about behaving like a professional: makes $160K of taxpayer money per academic year?
Feinberg and her Love and Money course belong in a high school.
2. It will be a sad day for America when every politician goes around escorted by a goon squad. We are too close to that day already, and people like Feinberg are bringing us closer.
3. I’m appreciative that to date Bill Jacobson has not turned down any of my comments. Today I was hard put not to use language that would have tested that record.
How to metaphorically bury a Liberal
1) Invite the Liberal on your radio show.
2) Hand them a shovel
3) Watch
4) Applaud. Make sure you get the shovel back.
well put.
What really grinds my teeth about this?
It’s not just her. I mean, there’s always one in every crowd.
It’s that people like her are becoming the crowd.
Go read some of the liberal message boards, or news boards with liberals posting on them. They’re right there with this arrogant witch.
If she had a clue, she would know that the total unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will absolutely bankrupt the government if not reformed. Ryan has put forth one plan to prevent that from happening. Where’s Feinberg’s plan? Where’s Obama and Pelosi’s plan? The irresponsible Democrat asshats won’t even pass a fricking budget.
It’s sickening that socialism is destroying America by sapping individual initiative, stifling entrepreneurism, devaluing self-reliance, and creating a dependency culture, and yet we’ve got socialists like her teaching, of all things, business courses.
Good grief, this is a person who collects herself: A “Best paper,” a “BIG paper,” “lots of travel,” and more exclamation marks than she should use in a year. Now, the poor dear’s gone and got herself involved in a class war . . . and she hasn’t any.
I don’t think so – she claimed she would confront Pelosi in response to a question about whether she would confront someone who “votes the right way.” In other words, she first said she is not bothered by Obama’s wastefulness because of his political positions (he “votes the right way”), then tried to claim she would confront Pelosi even though Pelosi “votes the right way.”
I’m not about to waste a few minutes of the precious life my mother gave me by not aborting me listening to some sanctimonious, leftist douchebag enjoy her fifteen minutes of fame for having acted in such a way as to be ejected from a restaurant, let alone make excuses for the Mocha Messiah’s proclivity for extravagant vacations at my family’s expense.
If I wanted to listen to some harpy fishwife, I’d call my career Army, younger brother’s ex-wife.
I would never order an $80+ bottle of wine myself, but I appreciate it when others do so. It’s good for the waiter because it will increase the size of his gratuity. It’s good for the waiter’s family because his larger gratuity will enable him to put food on his family’s table. It’s good for the restaurant because it increases the profit of the restaurant and supports the viability of the business. It also increases the capital available for the restaurant to expand and add employees. The additional profit provided by the purchaser of the wine increases the taxes paid to the state and federal governments so that intelligent and ignorant professors at state universities can be paid a salary.
[…] via Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: Prof. Susan Feinberg: Proud to have confronted Paul Ryan / Update – Audio added […]
Awwwwwwww … she and her husband wrestled with whether or not it was too extravagant to order an $80 bottle of wine.
My eyes swell with the grateful tears of 1,000 orphaned preschoolers stomping grapes in the dangerous vats of Napa Valley who have just been told that they’ll have to stomp through the night if their evil Republican winemaker master deems their feet insufficiently deep purple.
She makes at least $160K a year … and she wants to keep her husband’s income private … awwwww, what a quaint concept (maybe some high-volume interrogation by Ryan can get it out of her … her reluctance to disclose what hubby earns gives me a gut feeling their combined income puts them well over the delineated “rich” threshold of $250,000 … maybe even potential private jet owners … but, then again, maybe he makes minimum wage … she seems to wear the pants in the family … and I’ve heard he is puffy-chested … (man-boobs).
But they never forget the little people.
Shouldn’t she really be head of the department? No, not the Economics department, silly!! The Drama Queen Department. She really has a theatrical flair.
LukeHandCool (who mistakenly said his eyes “… swell with the grateful tears of 1,000 orphaned preschoolers stomping grapes …”
… make that 2,000. And who doesn’t want anybody to think he thinks he is better at quantifying difficult-to-quantify things better than a Rutgers economist … she was obviously tipsy … still … the following day during this radio interview … and who heard it through the grapevine that her puffy-chested hubby is the one who actually wears the pants in the family … when she lets him).
Too bad she wasn’t around to snatch Michelle Obama’s 1700 calorie lunch out of her mouth–unless she doesn’t believe it’s hypocritical to tell the rest of us to watch what we eat while stuff one’s face with burgers and fries.
It’s pathetic that a state college is paying someone with her crappy publication record $160,000 a year. It’s not like departments assign courses like “Love and Money” to their best and brightest.
Apparently, America needs Progressive wine lists from which to order cheap-talking wines, not to exceed $81 a bottle, but just not at the better establishments where patrons both conservative and leftist pay a premium to enjoy their dining experience.
Congressman Ryan should’ve politely told Professor Feinberg to cork it.
Congressman Ryan should’ve politely told Professor Feinberg to cork it.
I’m kind of disappointed that he didn’t. I mean, I understand that he didn’t want to be the one to escalate the scene at the restaurant (sounds like he handled the confrontation well). But I don’t think he should have been so apologetic about drinking expensive wine. Who cares if he drinks expensive wine while he tries to bring the Budget into check. The two are completely unrelated issues!
Thank goodness this airhead is stupid and arrogant enough to keep talking! I hope she makes it onto cable news, so an even larger audience can hear what an idiot she is. This is just ONE example of the quality of the minds now teaching our next generation of leaders. If she is representative, we are $crewed.
“I’m not out espousing policies that would gut health care for tens of millions of people” or “give vouchers to seniors.”
What about public workers salaries and benefits policy?
Liberals like this nitwit are all about “Look at me! Look at me! Look what I did!!” All cliche and no heft, intellectual or otherwise.
Among other things, e.g. hypocrisy, apparently a drunk, and a not-so-popular professor, she’s a liar.
This woman is a nobody. Paul Ryan is a someboday. Do the math…
“Paul Ryan should probably thank me that I reminded him that he wasn’t allowed to do that…. otherwise he would have been in violation of the law.”
This part really upsets me. She’s smearing Congressman Ryan with several assumptions that she really can’t backup. Insinuating that he wouldn’t have split the check if she hadn’t said something, and labeling the men he was with as lobbyists in direct contradiction to Congressman Ryan’s claims.
Oh and would it hurt her to call him Congressman Ryan instead of Paul, It’s just this thing. Ask Senator Boxer about it.
Freedom of speech and expression is also the freedom to make a total ass of yourself. Nice to see Professor Susan is exercising her rights!
Why stop at the wine? What about the meal tab, the costs of their clothes and conveyances to the restaurant, the purchase price of their houses/ upkeep and improvements, annual travel expenses, art, jewelry and cosmetic surgery, hairstyling, drycleaning, elective private school tuition and cars for the kids, and buying expensive cooking oils instead of Crisco?
Challenging the cost of a bottle of wine at one meal without stipulating the fungibility of money and providing an overall ledger of income, outgo and acceptable “limits” as to both and complete with one’s morally consistent reasoning for same is an empty, meaningless, hyper-partisan exercise of sham symbolism.
And from a professor of business and economics, no less. And how can Feinberg teach business if she can’t mind her own?
>>and buying expensive cooking oils instead of Crisco?
Hello?. Costco…ring a bell?? You can get EEVO by the barrel there
and hello to you.
EEVO looks to be an Asberger’s/ multiple personality/ numbers man user-name. And, rats, if you mean Evo. Had you given heads up just a mite sooner, you would’ve saved me from being fleeced by pet store prices. Susan will surely be ticked.
I’ve drafted a letter to the attention of Glenn Shafer,Dean of the Rutgers Business School and Hairstyling Academy requesting, nay demanding, the release of all the expense accounts associated with instructor staff there pursuant to the NJ Open Public records Act, N.J.S. 47:1A-1 et seq.
I am particularly interested in the expenses incurred by Teacher’s Assistant Susie Feinberg that were fronted or reimbursed by the tax payers of NJ.
I wonder if the $80 wine she had was fair trade and shade grown by unionized workers using long handled hoes who sing patriotic songs while they work.
Hey, Susie…did you check out Rep. Ryan’s shoes too?
She is already marketing her OWN wine:
http://politicalbloat.blogspot.com/2011/07/susan-feinberg-wine.html
Where does the pathetic DIM BULB think the money that pays her bloated salary comes from?
Communism?? What a stupid stupid loser.
This is how our country has rotted from within. This pathetic loser is teaching our kids.
Her phone number is readily available on Rutgers site.
In fact it’s a public University. XXXXXXXXXXX
I wonder if Chris Christie can reduce her salary in anyway.
She is so bougeousie.
Not interested in having her phone number listed here, so I’ve edited this comment.
Her bio says she worked in “advertsing” in France for “several” years.
Sounds like an effing business and econ genius.
Libtards are diseased.
Just like Oblahblah:“You would think they’d be saying thank you”. I’m still picking pieces of my head off the walls from this interview.
Don Giordano is my favorite talk radio host. I call in to his show all the time.
[…] tip: Legal Insurrection) Tags: Treacher (No Ratings Yet) Loading … […]
So let me get this straight. Professor Susan Feinberg gets $160K for teaching Rutgers students not to max out their credit cards? And her sense of ethics is so keen that she finds it acceptable to eavesdrop on the dinner conversation of her political enemies and challenge them on their menu choices? And to take that confrontation public? Lastly, she has gotten positive feedback on her loony liberalism for so long from her fellow faculty members that she doesn’t realize that airing her ridiculous partisan belligerence on the radio won’t play in public?
We’re fighting chimps.
Gee, I dunno, Ms. Feinberg – how does the state of New Jersey justify paying $160,000/yr. for an associate professor?
Shouldn’t that money be spent on widows’ and orphans’ healthcare, or given to those poor unfortunate souls who only make $10/hr?
BTW, Ms. Feinberg, you should be thanking me for pointing this out to you…..
Since the eminent Sue Feinberg advocates eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, I would like to encourage my fellow Americans to eavesdrop on her conversations whenever she is in public and post what was discussed on-line. It could make a great website in and of itself.
Gotta love the internet. Go here to see how her Rutgers Business School students rate her:
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=697660
One says her course is the worst ever and a total waste of time and the she is a total headcase. Others recount stories illustrating just how much of a loony leftist she is. One calls her “bibilous” and suggests, topically, that she should be drinking more coffee. Another remarks that she seems hostile to entrepreneurs. Still another opines that she doesn’t appear to know the difference between public and private funds.
To top it off, the site informs us that one book she uses in the course is Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” Not surprising, I guess, but she is supposed to be teaching international business.
At least some of her students get what crap she is dishing out, but lamentably, the Rutgers boobs who gave her tenure are on another planet
1. I couldn’t find a mention of Alinsky via your link. Perhaps you could give a more explicit link or a screenshot?
2. The Talking Points piece appeared on July 8. Before that date Feinberg received five “Good” and two “Poor” ratings. After that date, as of this writing, she has six “Poors” and one “Average”.
3. Wow, the TPM piece really infuriated Feinberg’s students.
What other explanation could there be?
Go to the linked page and click on “Books used by professor”
Hard to know what was added after the controversy started, and what was there before.
“Go to the linked page and click on “Books used by professor””
I did and got nothing. Hence my comment. I just tried again and found the Alinsky.
A course syllabus would probably settle the point. I couldn’t find one. A better googler than I might succeed.
1. Two of the “Poor” ratings described in my previous comment were posted on 7/15/10; I misread that as 7/15/11. Meanwhile another “Poor” has appeared on the site. The current aggregates are:
Before the TPM piece: 5 Good, 4 Poor.
After the TPM piece: 5 Poor, 1 Average.
The disparity noted in my previous comment persists, in weakened form.
2. Sorry, Bill. I get stupid after coding too long. Or maybe commenter burnout is a counterpart to blogger burnout.
Am I the only one who noticed that a single person making $10 an hour in a 40 hour work week makes $400, and that’s MORE than $350 not less? And what the hell does any of that have to do with a “family of 4” unless there’s even more income? And what the hell is the point of that arbitrary metric anyway? When you fail at math that hard, you should jump at the chance to admit being inebriated. When a self proclaimed “economist” fails that hard, it’s time to self-medicate.
Feinberg is a nasty piece of work. The woman who gave $1,700 to Obama in 2008 is whining about someone paying $350 for a damned bottle of wine? That $350 Ryan spent has done a hell of a lot more for the economy than the $1,700 tossed away by Feinberg.
I’d like to know how Feinberg reacted to Obama’s date night in NY with Michele, when he was telling us all to tighten our belts, which cost taxpayers – taxpayers, not the pres personally- an undisclosed amount but estimated at $150,000? I assume she got in his face about it.