Stockard on the Stump: Congressional candidate says he’ll drop Chinese military stocks

Tennessee Sen. Brent Taylor held Chinese military stocks as part of his investment portfolio even though he says President Donald Trump endorsed him in the Republican primary for the 9th Congressional District seat because he’ll be tough on China.

Taylor reported owning between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of stock in three companies connected to China, two of which are designated by the Pentagon as “Chinese military companies.” They are Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Prosus N.V. ADR, which holds a large stake in Tencent, according to his federal financial disclosure.

In response to questions from the Lookout, Taylor, a Shelby County Republican, said the president knows he has a “record of holding China accountable.” Trump and numerous Republican leaders and candidates have gone back to a tough-on-communism mantra as election season heats up.

Taylor explained in a text message to the Lookout that a broker handles his portfolio and independently moves his funds in and out of investments. 

“Nonetheless, I recently instructed my broker to review my holdings and sell any associated with Chinese businesses,” Taylor, a former funeral home owner, said in the text message.

The senator, as he is wont to do, joked that his broker doesn’t bury dead people and he doesn’t trade stocks.

But Taylor doesn’t bury dead people anymore after selling his funeral home business to a company that broke ties with him. Yet his disclosure form shows it continues to pay him a tidy sum, $35,000 last year and $17,500 so far this year.

Taylor also holds stock in Starbucks, which has come under scrutiny for — gasp — liberal leanings after receiving a $30 million state grant to open a corporate headquarters in Nashville. Taylor didn’t answer the Lookout’s questions about those two matters.

He’s going up against Republican state Rep. Todd Warner for the 9th District seat after the Tennessee Legislature split the majority-minority district in Memphis and diluted it with white, rural voters stretching all the way to Williamson County, since they have so much in common. The idea is to give Republicans a clean sweep of Tennessee’s congressional delegation following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that dismantled a key provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Warner’s disclosure form isn’t quite as exciting as Taylor’s. He has some loans on farm equipment and bank notes on his Chapel Hill property.

He entered office a few years ago on a not-so-high note, when the feds introduced themselves at his house early one morning as part of the investigation into former House Speaker Glen Casada and his ex-staffer Cade Cothren, who were subsequently convicted of multiple counts of fraud involving a secretive company that tapped into lawmakers’ state funds for constituent mailers. 

After a painful four-week trial, Casada and Cothren received full presidential pardons — as if it never happened.

Considering Warner has a life-size cutout of Trump in his office and continues to use Cothren for campaign work, you’d think the president would endorse him. But alas.

Despite the feds’ invasion before he took the oath of office, Warner was never indicted. He did catch the wrath of neighbors last year after starting a mining and quarry operation on his farm, which he claimed was an agriculture operation.

At the Capitol, he bucked House Republican and Senate leadership a couple of times and fought Gov. Bill Lee’s private-school voucher program. It didn’t work, but he garnered attention. He even teamed with ultra-liberal Rep. Aftyn Behn — OMG — for legislation that would move sexual harassment investigations from the legislature’s control to the attorney general.

Also running in the Republican primary for the 9th District seat are perennial candidate Charlotte Bergmann of Memphis and Jeremy Thompson of Fayetteville.

The winner is likely to take on Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson or state Sen. London Lamar, either of whom would face an uphill fight in a district designed to guarantee a Republican winner. Other Democrats in the race are LaTroy A-Williams of Memphis and Jim Torino of Columbia.

Pearson and Lamar are still running to hold on to their state seats, though, so they’ll probably be hanging out in D.C. or Nashville next year. Never fear.

Gubernatorial primary heats up

The Republican race for governor appears to be tightening as U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, nearly crowned early this year, lobs attacks at U.S. Rep. John Rose.

The Blackburn campaign accused Rose this week of falsely claiming that Blackburn is attacking him, when it was really an outside group.

To back up their argument, Blackburn’s campaign provided evidence that Rose voted as a Democrat in three primaries, including the 2002 and 2004 presidential primaries, donated money to Democratic candidates and committees and was appointed to the Tennessee Heritage Conservation Trust by former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat.

Further, Blackburn’s people challenged Rose’s claims that he co-founded Transcender Corporation, saying his friend, Aneel Pandey, really started the company before Rose joined him when they were law school students at Vanderbilt.

Rose campaign spokesperson Chris Devaney responded by saying it’s “rich” that the Blackburn campaign is claiming it isn’t attacking Rose when PACS are doing exactly that on Blackburn’s behalf.

As for the founding of Transcender, which Rose sold for a pretty penny, Devaney said if Blackburn had done anything “besides being a career politician, she would understand that starting a business involves more than just filing paperwork with the state.”

Meanwhile, Rose is calling for Blackburn to explain the results of a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into claims that she used taxpayer resources for political campaigns. NewsChannel5 reported on conversations by Blackburn’s staffers that they were worried about being asked to violate the Hatch Act by working on her campaign while on federal time.

Final votes are to be cast Aug. 6 in the Tennessee primary.

Photo op at the Capitol

Sen. Blackburn’s Facebook page contains a March 28 picture of her and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson in the House chamber of the Tennessee Capitol with a large group of young people. Some of them, including Johnson, are wearing “Marsha Marsha Marsha” stickers.

Blackburn doesn’t appear to be sporting her own campaign slogan, potentially enabling her to circumvent prohibitions on using the Capitol for political campaigns.

In fact, state law says it’s illegal for any elected or appointed official of the state to display campaign literature, banners, placards, streamers, stickers, signs or other campaign items or political advertising on behalf of any party, committee or agency or any candidate for political office on the premises of any state building or land. 

Johnson, of course, is wearing a “Marsha Marsha Marsha” sticker, but Blackburn was comfortable enough with the picture to put it on Facebook. That must make it OK.

More than a bad look

A week after writing an op-ed about questionable teachings at a police use-of-force seminar, Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy declined to pursue charges against a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agent who shot and killed a Memphis Burger King worker. 

Mulroy then released brief videos used to make the decision in connection with the shooting death of Darrin Pigram, 41. The videos don’t exactly match the claims that Pigram pulled up his shirt and showed a gun when members of the Memphis Safe Task Force entered the restaurant to serve an arrest warrant. The footage has several gaps.

What the video shows is disturbing and shocking. Pigram is gunned down as co-workers watch.

And for what? He wasn’t wanted on a drug-related charge.

The Lookout reported that Pigram had one misdemeanor conviction in Memphis for threatening his stepfather. The arrest warrant feds served on him was for aggravated assault, aggravated burglary and employing a firearm in commission of a felony in connection with an accusation that he threatened neighbors with a gun over loud music in January.

In that case, deadly force has to be justified?

If you fully support the task force’s actions and the Mulroy decision, though, consider this: According to the Lookout report, the task force members couldn’t find Pigram at home, so they went to Burger King.

They couldn’t wait until he got off work and went home. Thus, someone came up with the bright idea for DEA and other agents to go to Burger King where folks were eating, working and going about their day when officers wearing military garb and carrying rifles took over the place and killed a man who got mad about loud music?

Done with it

Sen. Ferrell Haile is dropping out of the race for Tennessee Senate speaker, leaving it to Johnson and Sen. Paul Bailey to grapple for the top position, the Tennessee Journal reports.

Haile told the Lookout this year he decided to enter the field to replace outgoing Senate Speaker Randy McNally after several people asked him to get involved.

Speculation was that Johnson and Bailey weren’t lighting anyone’s fire, so Haile could bring a steady hand to the race. Haile’s candidacy clearly didn’t excite enough people to garner a majority in the Senate Republican Caucus, which will choose the speaker, who also serves as lieutenant governor, second in the line of succession in Tennessee.

The caucus has 27 members, so it’s going to take a lot of cajoling and maybe some arm-twisting to line up the votes for a win. They have until December to get it done.

“Time is on my side, yes it is”*

*Rolling Stones – “Time Is On My Side”