Paul Craig Cobb (born 1951) is a white nationalist and white supremacist who created the video sharing website Podblanc. He states "my race is my religion", and advocates "racial holy war" in accordance with the tenets of the Creativity religion. Cobb has gained attention from anti-racist and anti-fascist movements, and legal advocacy organizations investigating hate speech and hate crimes, for his "celebration of violence and murder committed against minorities", as documented in his video recordings, online activities, and disruptions of public events.
Cobb is known for his attempt to take over the city of Leith, North Dakota, with other white supremacists. The community has around 33 inhabitants. Cobb, who moved to Leith in 2012, attracted other white supremacists to the town and displayed white nationalist paraphernalia on his properties. Local residents and anti-racist organizations organized a protest in Leith against Cobb and his allies. Welcome to Leith, a documentary film about Cobb's attempt to take over Leith, was released in 2015.
Cobb has appeared on several radio talk shows to talk about his plans for the white supremacist movement in Leith. During his appearance on The Trisha Goddard Show, a DNA test from the company DDS performed on Cobb showed that he has 14% sub-Saharan African ancestry. However, Cobb retested with AncestryDNA which allegedly showed that he had 100% European ancestry.
Youth and early adulthood
Cobb says he was raised as a Christian, but has since denounced Christianity, saying "I don't understand Christians. They have a need to be morally superior than the next guy. ... They are very threatened by anything with racial cohesion."
After serving in the military, he lived in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for five years before moving to Hawaii, where he lived for another 25 years and earned a living as a taxi driver.
In 2003, he relocated to Frost, West Virginia, where he opened a grocery store and registered a business called "Gray's Store, Aryan Autographs and 14 Words, L.L.C." During this time, he was involved in unsolicited inter-state deliveries of a neo-Nazi newspaper published by Alex Linder, and distribution of Project Schoolyard CDs to local children,.
Moving abroad
In late 2005, after receiving an inheritance of $85,000, he moved to Tallinn, Estonia. In Tallinn, Cobb met with white power skinheads, and purchased land south of Tallinn where he hoped to establish an "International Office of White Diaspora". During this period, Cobb established Podblanc, a white supremacist video sharing website. His attempts to find an Estonian woman who would marry him were unsuccessful and he came to public attention after conducting an interview with a former Estonian Ministry of Justice employee whom he introduced as the leader of the Estonian Neo-Nazis. On August 25, 2009, he was issued a ten-year ban from Estonia and deported to Canada, where Cobb claims to hold citizenship, for "endangering state security, public order, public safety, moral standards, health, other public interests" and promoting racism. During his period of incarceration before deportation, his supporters in the US made contact with Canadian neo-fascist Paul Fromm in order to prepare for Cobb's anticipated arrest under Canadian hate speech laws. In March 2010, after posting videos of anti-racist activists online, he was discovered to be living in the Downtown Eastside area of Vancouver, British Columbia, where he also made an unsuccessful attempt to register a non-profit society called Whitepeace.
Returning to the US
In June 2010, Cobb was arrested by police in Vancouver, but released with a summons after which he left Canada to return to the United States. In 2010, Cobb was living in Kalispell, Montana, which was a recruiting target for several white nationalists. Cobb engaged in a feud with another local neo-Nazi, Karl Gharst, against whom he had filed a restraining order in October 2010. His activities were opposed by the local pro-tolerance group Love Lives Here. At the end of December 2010, Canadian authorities issued a warrant for his arrest on the charge of "willful promotion of hatred" after a failure to appear". Cobb responded to the warrant by stating "You can find me in the orange easy chair near the elevator" at the Flathead County Library in Kalispell.