Second congressional district Representative Elaine Luria. Photo credit: Virginian-Pilot
Kerry Dougherty
Memo to Rep. Elaine Luria: When you’ve lost the far-left Daily Beast, you may be in trouble.
In a surprisingly tough May 12 piece headlined “The Dem May Hate Facebook But Her Stock Portfolio Doesn’t,” Daily Beast political reporter Roger Sollenberger skewered Luria for publicly criticizing Facebook, while owning between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in the company.
“Those holdings, owned jointly with her husband, make her the largest Facebook shareholder in Congress and might appear to undercut the force of her criticism,” Sollenberger wrote.
Might?
It definitely makes her look hypocritical.
If Luria genuinely believes that Facebook traffics in misinformation why would she hold stock in the company? Better yet, why would she spend hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising on the platform?
Then again, Luria specializes in having it both ways.
Anyone else remember how coy Luria was during the 2018 campaign when she was asked if she intended to support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker?
Pelosi’s approval rating stood at 28% that year, and to admit that she was a supporter of the liberal from San Francisco would not have endeared Luria to her 2nd district voters.
So she vacillated.
But no sooner was she installed on Capitol Hill than Luria cast her vote for the California progressive.
Worse, days after Luria took office and during a partial government shutdown, the rookie congresswoman was merrily booked on a junket with Pelosi. The trip was aborted when President Trump had the Air Force bus she was on along with Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Mark Takano, D-Calif returned to the Capitol.
Pelosi had just told the president to postpone his State of the Union address or simply submit it in writing.
Trump refused. In return, he cancelled her trip.
“Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt and Afghanistan has been postponed,” Trump wrote. “In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.”
Trump said in his letter that Pelosi could reschedule the trip after the government has re-opened.
“It would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement,“ he wrote, but “if you would like to make your journey flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.”
Politicians pay for their own flights? Lol.
Less than a month later, Trump delivered his State of the Union address — in person — and Luria was not hard to spot. There she was, in a sea of white, like a sad sorority girl on pref night, with all the other female Democrats. She sat three rows behind their leader, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
According to ProPublica, Luria votes with the Democrats 97% of the time. But there is one issue where she parts company with Nancy Pelosi: The bipartisan move to ban members of Congress from holding stock in individual companies.
The Daily Beast reports that Luria has called the proposed bipartisan trading bans “bullshit.”
Of course she did.
This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.
