The Cobb Board of Elections meeting on Monday was adjourned prematurely after someone in the audience shouted “Heil Hitler” during a public comment period.
The board had just heard a comment from citizen Hugh Norris, who was critical of an elections board member who does not stand for the Pledge of Allegiance at board meetings.
His comments were directed at board member Jennifer Mosbacher of East Cobb, whom Norris called a “closeted Communist” who wasn’t demonstrating proper loyalty to her duties and who should be replaced.
After he was finished, some applause broke out, followed by the “Heil Hitler” remark.
Mosbacher, who is Jewish, immediately began waving her arms in protest.
“Who said that?” she said.
“That is extremely unacceptable,” board chairwoman Tori Silas said. “It’s completely out of order.”
Board attorney Daniel White said that commenters can speak out what they like, even if it’s “ugly,” but they can’t proceed in a way that disrupts the flow of the meeting. He thought that comment fit the latter description, since it amounted to hate speech.
“We’re going to calm it down, and let people have a chance to take a pause, don’t make it personal, people can say what they want and we’ll move forward,” he said.
But Mosbacher said that “anti-Semitic rhetoric, not acceptable. I’m won’t continue to sit in this seat if that person is in this room.”
Silas agreed, and said it is not “a matter of what can happen, it is a matter of what will not happen. . . . We can just stop this meeting.”
White looked at the audience and asked whomever the commenter was to leave the room.
When no one did, Silas said, “So you’re going to hide behind the statement?”
Elections board member Stacy Efrat, also of East Cobb, said “we cannot allow this person to stay in this room. It is hate speech and it is unacceptable.
“We can all disagree with each other’s political views, but we cannot allow hate speech.”
As county staff tried to locate commenter, Mosbacher made a reference to Leo Frank, a Jew who was lynched in Marietta in 1915.
Board member Debbie Fisher of East Cobb said it should be “standard duty” for the board not to engage with the audience. “I just think we may be adding a little fuel to the fire.”
Silas replied that “unfortunately, we are in uncharted territory with that type of hate speech being hurled at this board.”
When the “Heil Hitler” commenter could not be located, the board voted 4-0-1 to adjourn, with Fisher abstaining.
It was unclear when the elections board, which holds monthly regular meetings, would resume this one.
You can watch the sequence at the 1:02-hour mark in the video below.
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Being upset over a tiny, useless, act created for small-minded people is foolish. She isn’t the in the US Military.
It is just a respectful as an American to choose NOT to stand, but not interrupt others, as it is to stand and do the deed.
There’s no law that requires any pledge of allegiance for the meetings, so just go away already.
Now, if you’d like to discuss election issues and present proven facts, not personal opinions, I’m all ears. Use your words like we expect any 8 yr old to do. Please.
This is an election issue. We have an appointment to the Board of Elections who does not have enough respect for the country to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. This appointment was made by Lisa Cupid who violated her oath of office when she decided to ignore the Georgia Constitution with this Home Rule fiasco. These are character issues which make both of them unfit for office.
Traditions and respect for our country may not mean anything to you, but they do to me and I will voice it.
And since you insulted me, I will return the favor and state that you are a weak, emasculated, coward of a man who would rather sit back and let everything be taken away from you than speak up.
Now, you go away punk.
Let’s be true Americans and agree to honor everyone’s rights. You might not agree with what you see but everyone has the right to sit , stand or kneel. That also includes the right of free speech to make any statements that show you are not in agreement. Both of those rights will cancel each other out since they’re both right.
Problem here seems that some elements in the crowd were voicing their opposition to what was said by Mr Norris. We go back and forth all the time at things said during public speaking. But what if the public was shouting their disagreement with the statement and shouted the phrase to insult Mr Norris. What if someone was shouting out stupid things in that regard? At that point Mr Norris was being attacked by the crowd mentality and were not attacking the BOE. If the meeting was being conducted according to the rules then the Board should have reacted to the public attack on the speaker returning to his seat.
There is a lot of animosity towards one another and any hate speech should be off limits. There are many examples of what is truly hate speech. Right now it appears that if you don’t agree with someone’s message then you can claim it is hateful. Cobb County is not a hateful community and I think everyone knows it. Remember that you are neighbors and won’t agree on everything but this is a community based on what we have in common.
Well said Donald.
It looked to me like the statement was made to mock Mr. Norris and some in the audience pointed that out to the Chair.
Yikes – this ‘jim turner’ bot must be malfunctioning. We don’t typically refer to to things happing here as ‘in the USA’ (the off time-zone hours on the comments are another giveaway).
As an actual Cobb citizen myself, I support everyone’s right to decide whether they want to stand, sit, sleep, or whatever else during a children’s rhyme during a public meeting for adults. You can definitely disagree (also very much supported here in our country), but shouting hate speech while hiding in a crowd is both cowardly and not representative of the overwhelming majority of our county’s residents.
C ommunist U nfit P ilfering I nept D ispicable
CupidOutOfCobb
1985 wants it’s hairdo back
Is Mosbacher a citizen of more than one country? Just wondering if she won’t pledge allegiance to the USA because she has pledged her allegiance to a different country. If so, is it legal for her to be on a Board of Election in the USA?
The pledge of allegiance has no legal binding you moron.
You completely misunderstood the question you idiot emasculated soyboy.
I highly recommend reading up on the history of the Bolsheviks and asking yourself if you see any parallels. This stuff is not new, it is a very old playbook.
Why doesn’t Mosbacher stand for the pledge of allegiance. Is she a Communist or something? This should disqualify her from being a member of the Cobb Board of Elections. Interesting that in reality it was Mosbacher who caused the meeting disruption. Is this legal? Are Communists legally allowed to be on our Board of Elections? All that the Left does is destroy. We would all be wise to remember that in November.
Same as a lot of African Americans, We may stand, but we usually don’t say the word. The SCOTUS in the Dredd Scott decision said we weren’t Citizens, we are only 3/5ths of a person. No allegiance to us, no allegiance to us. We still need the Voting Rights Act to vote, and they are set on taking away the protections.
Looks like they went to the Lisa Cupid School of Political Acting.
Drama queens.
I agree that standing and pledging allegiance to a flag is something nobody over 10 yrs old should be forced to do. There is not “test of loyalty” short of multiple, daily, actions over the time spend performing a duty. Saying the Pledge nothing and meaningless. The gentleman claiming it showed anything useful is wrong.
OTOH, the board member who took offense from an outburst in a crowd is overly sensitive for the position. Part of being in a govt office is listening to undesirable things. She should have ignored the outburst completely. Instead she chose to “take offense” and call it hate speech.
If anything, it was hate speech against the Nazis. I find it shocking she didn’t see that.
It was not anti-semetic at all.
Being forced to pledge allegiance is something a Nazi would demand. That’s pretty clear to me. Similar to when 1 person expects another person to behave in a way they want that isn’t in any law.
Everyone needs to grow up a bit. I’m embarrassed when things like this happen in my county.
BTW, I love the t-shirt. Paper ballots are the best solution for voters to know how they voted and for counts to be validated and re-re-revalidated quickly. Since absentee voting is the only way I can get a paper ballot, I never intend to vote any other way in Georgia again.
By now, everyone in Georgia should know that voting machines that don’t generate paper output without “thermal paper” aren’t sufficient. If humans can’t get a box of paper ballots and count each candidates votes with 2 other people counting at the same time, using just a tally sheet and no mechanical help, each counting person getting to the same final counts for that box of 1000 votes, then we have a failure of the system.
Georgia decided to spend millions on voting machines to look more modern, not to actually have verifiable votes. No paper trail means no verifiable voting system.
On voting software: https://xkcd.com/2030/
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-voting-georgia-atlanta-54d9d88fa442398371566bfb736b73a2 – Georgia Voting machines aren’t secure.
Quote:
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in June issued an advisory based on Halderman’s findings. …. about Georgia’s voting machine systems.