All posts tagged "Gabrielle Hanson"

FRANKLIN, Tenn. — Diners lined the sidewalk to snag one of the coveted tables at Puckett’s Grocery on Sunday as this small city south of Nashville hummed through one of the last perfect days of autumn.

It was a convivial scene replicated throughout the day with boisterous teenagers on soccer fields at Pinkerton Park and patrons at Kimbro’s Pickin Parlor playfully bantering on the music hall’s front porch during an LGBTQ happy hour.

One missing element — Nazis....

An investigative reporter was told he needed to be "eradicated" after uncovering a series of scandals about stolen social media images and endorsements a local pro-Trump candidate implied she'd received but never had, according to a new report.

Tennessee News Channel 5 investigative reporter Phil Williams Friday shared audio of the threatening voicemail he says he received from a reader who took umbrage with his coverage of former Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson.

"You're a left-wing progressive f--k who lies and manipulates people's minds to further your stupid f--king left-wing agenda," the man says. "People like you need to be eradicated."...

Neo-Nazis in Tennessee continue to exploit their relationship with Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson, using their newfound notoriety to recruit followers and convey threats toward local journalists and progressive politicians.

A new video featuring a 20-minute conversation between neo-Nazi and Tennessee Active Club leader Sean Kauffmann and Valerie Baldes, an aide to Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson, provides a platform for Kauffmann to openly promote Nazism while spreading hate against Jews and LGBTQ people. During the interview, Kauffmann described anti-fascists as “the foot soldiers of the Judeo-capitalists” while equating LGBTQ people with pedophilia.

The video, which was produced by a consortium of white supremacist groups, was released late Wednesday, on the eve of the final day of early voting for Franklin’s mayoral and board of aldermen election. The official election day is scheduled for Oct. 24....

Gabrielle Hanson, a far-right candidate for mayor of Franklin, Tenn., today used the statements of neo-Nazis in an attempt to distance herself from supportive neo-Nazis.

A press release posted on Hanson’s X account on Wednesday afternoon juxtaposed a statement from Hanson indicating that she “did not hire” neo-Nazis who showed up to support her two days ago at a candidate event with a set of screengrabs from the Telegram channel of the Tennessee Active Club, led by neo-Nazi Sean Kauffmann.

What Hanson’s statement did not include was an unequivocal denunciation of neo-Nazis....

A controversial pro-Trump mayoral candidate for Franklin, Tennessee was caught trying to boot a reporter for a specific network out of her event, after that network had broken an embarrassing story about her husband, reported The Daily Beast on Friday.

"Jared Sullivan, an observer at Wednesday’s event in Franklin, Tennessee, reportedly recorded Hanson telling a staffer, “No Channel 5. They have to leave.” Meanwhile, just outside the forum, video showed a group of apparent Hanson supporters standing shoulder-to-shoulder to block reporters from entering the event — with one woman even taking a swipe at a journalist as he tried to squeeze by," reported Josh Fiallo. "While Hanson hasn’t revealed why she wanted Channel 5 out of the room, it’s possibly related to the station’s reporting this week that revealed Hanson’s husband once rocked American flag Speedos — and nothing else, save for a gold chain, glasses, and shoes — to a Pride event in Chicago."

This comes in spite of the fact that Hanson has built her campaign on her opposition to a Pride event in the city as harmful to children, Fiallo noted, which "earned her street cred among the city’s conservative base" and got her "an endorsement from the city’s Moms For Liberty chapter, a right-wing advocacy organization that’s been labeled an 'extremist group' by the Southern Poverty Law Center."...