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Old December 8th, 2013 #1
Mr A.Anderson
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Default #2 Leith News Thread

This thread is dedicated to news articles, screen shots, videos, editorials, etc about the events that surround Leith, North Dakota.



This is to be a repository of information only, no commentary, discussion, or off topic posts will be allowed to keep this thread clean and clutter free. I have discussed this with Alex, Varg, and Bev. This thread will be monitored and is to be treated as "serious or activism" content.



Keeping this thread clean of all commentary allows readers to use this as a news resource without having to wade through 100 pages of commentary to find a particluar article or quote.

If a person wants to comment on a particular post, please quote, copy, and paste it over to #1 Craig Cobb in Leith Thread (Craig Cobb's PLE in North Dakota)

Post only appropriate content, without commentary of any sort accompanying it.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #2
Mr A.Anderson
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Default August 22, 3013

White Supremacists Making Bid to Take Over North Dakota Town
Ryan Lenz on August 22, 2013

LEITH, N.D. –– Abandoned houses lean with the weight of years on city blocks connected by gravel roads. A grain elevator still operates on the edge of town, but it hasn’t seen good business in decades. The only storefront business is a bar, and on most afternoons it sits empty like the roads that disappear among sunflower and wheat fields in the distance.

While the economy in North Dakota has boomed in recent years due to the discovery of oil in the miles of shale beneath the state, business in Leith has been in decline for the better part of a century. So when officials in April 2012 noticed that one man was quickly buying up abandoned properties in what had become close to a ghost town high on the Great Plains, it was strange.

“I didn’t have a clue who the guy was until he showed up. All I know is he bought that house sight unseen, $5,000 cash, and had no idea what it looked like, where it was, other than he knew the directions to get to Leith,” Leith Mayor Ryan Schock, a farmer who has lived here all his life, told Hatewatch.

That strange man was Paul Craig Cobb, 61, a bearded neo-Nazi who moved into a ramshackle two-story house without running water, and quickly began buying properties around Leith, population 19. According to county tax records that were first obtained by Hatewatch, Cobb has since purchased more than a dozen lots for a few hundred dollars each, mostly from landowners who live elsewhere in the country.

Cobb’s endgame is clear. Last year, on the white supremacist online forum Vanguard News Network (VNN), he announced his intentions to build an all-white bastion of racists in North Dakota “post haste.” The grandiose plan ends with white supremacists and neo-Nazis taking over the county government, and he has even said he hopes to rename Leith “Cobbsville.”

“Been waiting quite a few months to spring this. Now is the time,” Cobb wrote at the time. Then, in what appeared to be a pitch to those who might have reservations about moving so far north, Cobb touted the benefits of his new home. “There is water, electricity, satellite internet via Hughes at $50 per month, satellite TV from at least 3 companies, trailers, 5th wheels, campers legal, car [insurance] as little as $141 for 6 months and most importantly –– a surfeit of very good paying jobs in two different cities within normal commutable distances,” he wrote.

Cobb’s plan in Leith is to build a Pioneer Little Europe –– an idea long favored on the racist right as a way to escape what is seen as a multiculturalist agenda at work in larger and more racially diverse cities. First proposed in a 2001 pamphlet by H. Michael Barrett, the vision is to consolidate white residents in existing cities and towns and create all-white enclaves. Northwestern states including Montana, Idaho, and now North Dakota, have historically been considered appealing places to start because of lack of racial diversity.

According to the most recent U.S. Census data, 90% of the population of North Dakota is white. That increases to 97% in Grant County, where Cobb has settled.

Already some of the most active white supremacists and neo-Nazi leaders in the country have come calling.

According to county tax and property records, Tom Metzger, of Warsaw, Ind., a viciously racist propagandist who leads a group known as the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), purchased a lot for one dollar from Cobb in June 2012. Four months later, Alex Linder, who runs the VNN neo-Nazi Web forum, did the same. Additionally, Cobb claims to have donated buildings in Leith to the National Socialist Movement (NSM), the largest neo-Nazi group in the country. Grant County tax officials say Cobb could have sold more and not recorded a deed transfer.

News of Cobb’s plan spread quickly this week, when two men moved into tents on one of Cobb’s properties, alarming residents who were unaware of his racist plans.

“He’s worried people over here. In a community like Leith, you get someone strange in and they’re always kind of worrying,” Grant County Sheriff Steve Bay said, adding that he could understand the benefit of an isolated town in North Dakota for someone like Cobb. “What better place to pick up some land if you want to get something established?” Bay asked.

This isn’t the first time Cobb has tried to build a homeland for whites. In 2006, he moved to Estonia and established Podblanc, a video-sharing service for white supremacists. America was beyond help, he warned then. “I believe that the Democrat[ic] and Republican criminal syndicates that run the U.S. with international jewry’s [sic] criminal syndicate cannot now be stopped,” he wrote. “Media barrages too much control the minds of White Americans.”

But four years later, Cobb returned to the United States and reportedly settled in Montana’s Flathead Valley, where other racists including Christian Identity proponent Karl Gharst and neo-Nazi April Gaede had begun working to build a similar Pioneer Little Europe community of white supremacists. Cobb moved to North Dakota in April, where he has reportedly been working on road construction crews.

Cobb’s racist dreams for North Dakota are not isolated to Grant County. As there are nearly limitless job opportunities as a result of the oil boom happening in the western half of the state, other white supremacists have made their presence known in Williston, which has dubbed itself “Boom Town, USA.”

There, at a NAPA auto parts store, Shane Myers sells assault rifles and tactical gear out of the back hallway. He wears a ring with Nazi SS lightning bolts, and white supremacists online have claimed he will offer a deal to other white nationalists in the state. And if there is any confusion about his worldview, a single Post-It note on the wall behind his desk clears up any misconceptions. It reads simply, “Diversity=Division=Disunity.”

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/08/22/white-supremacists-making-bid-to-take-over-north-dakota-town/

vnn thread: White Nationalism - Clear $1,000 A Week & Up By Coming To Williston Or Dickinson ND Right Now - JobsND.com

Last edited by Mr A.Anderson; December 8th, 2013 at 11:25 AM.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #3
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Leith wants white supremacist to leave; he says he's staying put

LEITH — Residents “want him out,” but a white supremacist says he plans to stay in this tiny North Dakota town where he bought up property with the vision of creating a white nationalist community.

By: TJ Jerke, Forum News Service


Craig Paul Cobb speaks in front of his Leith home about his outspoken White Nationalist or white supremacist views in this tiny Grant County town in southwestern North Dakota on Friday.

LEITH — Residents “want him out,” but a white supremacist says he plans to stay in this tiny North Dakota town where he bought up property with the vision of creating a white nationalist community.

In an interview Friday, Craig Paul Cobb said he was fired from his road construction job but doesn’t plan to leave Leith, about 70 miles southwest of Bismarck.

“I plan on staying and that (losing his job) freed me up to get more propaganda and bring more people to Leith,” he said. “I would love to see the White Nationalists flag flying in town.”

Leith Mayor Ryan Schock and many residents became aware of Cobb’s plans Aug. 15, after a reporter from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, came to town to look into Cobb’s alleged secret attempt to turn the town into a Pioneer Little Europe, an enclave of white supremacists. Cobb had bought a dozen properties since 2011 and was trying to subtly advertise them on the Internet and draw in like-minded people.

“Everybody has the right to live anywhere they want in the U.S., but when people come together to live together in a community, they should be working for the common good instead of the hate,” said Sherrill Harper, the wife of Bobby Harper, the only African-American in Leith. “If we are going to do something about it, then we will have to work together.”

Leith is in Grant County, with a population of 16, according to the 2010 U.S. census. The county had only 2,394 residents in 2010, with one African-American, three Asians and 27 American Indian or Alaska Natives.

Muriel Ulrich, the Grant County tax director, said Cobb bought four lots in September 2011, five lots in June 2012 and three more in October totaling $8,490. The town is remote, but close enough to North Dakota’s oilfields to provide access to good-paying jobs.

When Ulrich asked why he was buying the land, Cobb said he wanted to rename the town “Cobbsville.” Cobb says he believes there are differences between blacks and whites in America, including hormonal differences, and that a pretension exists that all races are the same.

He refutes that notion and says violent crime is directly related to the black population, referring to a high percentage of black Americans living on government assistance.

“Welfare dependency is breeding killers and violent subhumans,” Cobb said. “People need to love their race and their own people.”

Cobb, who said he grew up as a Christian, thinks a lot of Christians are scary.

“I don’t understand Christians. They have a need to be morally superior than the next guy,” he said. “They are very threatened by anything with racial cohesion.”

Evidence of Cobb’s plans can be found on a Vanguard News Network forum, an anti-Semitic, white supremacist website.

Cobb can be seen in photos standing in different locations around Leith and highlighting his plans for a white nationalist community that advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people — though the location is not identified.

In one photo, he says once he becomes mayor, he wants to remove an old, rusty tractor that’s sitting across the road from his house and put a World War II German tank in its place as a memorial to a Nazi armored tank division.

“Had the Panzers won, we wouldn’t be chock full to our ears with Hottentots, Aztecs and Chozenites,” he said on the forum.

In another photo, Cobb stands in tall grass he wants to turn into a park to memorialize Adolf Hitler. He writes about rewriting city ordinances to discriminate against minorities and leftist journalists.

“People are scared,” Schock said. “It’s a shock because we’ve never dealt with something like this in our community before. People want to get to the bottom of it and get some answers.”

He said what stirred up the most excitement in town was after they were notified about Cobb’s intentions, two men showed up days later claiming to be from Wisconsin trying to settle down in a small, quiet town.

The two men have made payments toward a dilapidated home on property owned by Cobb. Both claim not to align with Cobb’s beliefs and have nothing to do with any plans he might have.

Schock said it was cause for concern, as the two men and Cobb have been the only three people without family ties to the area to move into town in the last 10 to 15 years.

Grant County Sheriff Steve Bay said he periodically checks in with the county recorder’s office about new people moving into the area, and now, nobody will be able to buy land in Leith without him knowing.

“I’m not trying to stop anybody from doing it, I just want to know who is doing it,” he said.

And so far, Bay hasn’t had any interactions with Cobb.

“He’s been as legal as anybody around here,” he said.

He hasn’t broken the law

As they continue to piece together the news, Leith residents have one problem: They can’t do anything about Cobb’s purchases.

Cobb said Friday that nobody can interfere with someone’s housing, pointing out laws under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Schock said he has talked to three attorneys since the news broke, including the Grant County state’s attorney. All have said there isn’t anything they can do.

“As of now, he hasn’t broken any laws. All he has done is buy property so far,” Schock said. “Even the people he is selling it to haven’t done anything wrong, they’re not criminals.”


The North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights can’t do much either.

The department’s Human Rights Division is responsible for enforcing the North Dakota Human Rights Act and the North Dakota Housing Discrimination Act, both primarily focused on discrimination in the workplace and housing.

Commissioner Bonnie Storbakken said the only way officials would step into the issue is if Cobb was in the rental property business or sold multiple dwellings and discriminated against someone and a complaint was filed.

“It definitely caught our eye,” she said about the news. “But, much like everyone else, there is not a lot that can be done unless he fits within our jurisdiction of the statutes.”

Nettie Ketterling has owned and operated the Leith Bar the last 24 years just down the road from Cobb’s house.

She said the only time she interacted with Cobb was more than a year ago, when he first moved to town and came into the bar to briefly charge his cellphone.

She said he seemed like a nice guy.

“He wasn’t opinionated or anything that I could tell, he was just nice. I didn’t think anything of it,” she said. “Now I don’t know.”

Sherrill Harper, who has lived in Leith for seven years, hopes now that Cobb’s plan has been found out, nobody will move to Leith.

“I hope no one else will come up here and bring this hatred to our little town,” she said. “It’s not just a little town, it’s the whole area around here, everything will be affected with that.”

People are treating him differently now that they are aware of his beliefs. “I used to wave at people but now they have basically stopped,” Cobb said. “It’s rather childish.”

Foiled

Cobb’s plans for Leith were exposed after the Southern Poverty Law Center caught up with them.

Mark Potok, editor in chief of the Hatewatch blog and Intelligence Report, both published by the law center, said the center has been tracking Cobb for years.

He said it was the names of two well-known white supremacists, Tom Metzger, a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and Alex Linder, that court records showed Cobb gave land to that drew a red flag.

Cobb said Friday he plans on giving a lot to Golden Dawn, a Greek neo-Nazi group, and would like to give a lot to David Duke, the most recognizable figure of the American radical right, according to the law center.

Once they realized what was going on, Potok sent a reporter to town to expose Cobb’s efforts and inform Schock and residents.

“This is a small community that certainly didn’t remotely expect an invasion of white supremacists and neo-Nazis,” Potok said. “Our purpose isn’t to needlessly raise alarms, but this is a remarkable thing. These people — we are talking about some of the leading players on the extreme right in this country — are apparently moving, or setting up property.”

Potok said Cobb’s plans are part of an ongoing attempt by many white supremacists to set up small enclaves around the country, predominantly in the heavily white areas of the northwest United States.

Potok pointed out Cobb’s advertisements that focused on the small town and close proximity to the Oil Patch, where people could find a steady source of income like Cobb had been able to do.

“Most don’t have two pennies to rub together, so the prospect of good-paying work is very attractive to them,” Potok said.

Potok said once attempts to create white supremacist enclaves are exposed, they usually don’t make it much further.

Arrested in Canada

As surprised as area residents were, Sheriff Bay said his office has known about Cobb’s past for a while after stumbling onto a warrant Canada issued for Cobb’s arrest, but nobody knew about his plans for the town.

Bay said if he finds out there’s a warrant out for anybody in the county, his office will usually follow up with it.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Normandie Levas, a member of the British Columbia Hate Crime Team, said in a statement that Cobb was charged Dec. 31, 2010, in Vancouver for the willful promotion of hatred. Cobb fled to the Unites States prior to his first court appearance and a Canada-wide warrant was issued for Cobb’s arrest.

Cobb can’t be extradited back to Canada because there is no similar law for the offense in the U.S., he said.

Levas said Canadian authorities are in regular communication with U.S. law enforcement in regard to Cobb, who will be arrested if he ever enters Canada again.

Kevin Cederstrom, a freelance photojournalist living in southwestern North Dakota, contributed to this story.

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/eve...icle/id/71415/

Last edited by Mr A.Anderson; December 8th, 2013 at 11:26 AM.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #4
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White supremacist taking over North Dakota town?

An avowed white supremacist has quietly been buying plots of land in a tiny North Dakota ghost town, raising concerns among locals that he wants to turn the area into a haven for racists.

Craig Cobb, 61, who once avowed that "racism is my religion," lives in a ramshackle two-story house in Leith, N.D., and has purchased at least 12 other lots since moving there early last year, according to The Bismark Tribune.

Leith was founded in 1910 as a railroad town and is now mostly abandoned. According to Mayor Ryan Schock, it has only 24 residents, including children.

Schock told MSN News on Friday he's received more than 100 calls from concerned area residents and reporters since the Tribune published a story about Cobb on Wednesday night. "Where we live at. That's a lot," he said.

Schock described Cobb as "just a very quiet man, keeps to himself, doesn't really seem to bother anybody that I know of."

A home telephone listing for Cobb couldn't be found. The Tribune said Cobb didn't return calls and texts to his cellphone and no one answered a knock on his door.

"Cobb is the most hardcore white supremacist anti-Semite you can have," Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, told MSN News. "What he's doing up there is extremely serious in the world of white supremacists because he's making happen what a lot of these guys only dream about. He's buying property and giving it to other white supremacists and he's gotten some very prominent white supremacists to buy land up there."

PLANS FOR A 'WHITE NATIONALIST' COMMUNITY

Cobb, who founded Podblanc, a video-sharing service that has been described as a white supremacist alternative to YouTube, wrote on the white supremacist online forum Vanguard News Network last year that he wanted to build a "white nationalist" community "post haste" in North Dakota.

He urged people moving there to "always (24 hrs a day) fly at least one racialist banner."

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch blog, citing county tax and property records, said that last year Cobb resold one lot each in Leith to two other well-known neo-Nazi leaders: Tom Metzger, of Warsaw, Ind., who leads the White Aryan Resistance, and Alex Linder, who operates the Vanguard News Network.

"He's worried people over here. In a community like Leith, you get someone strange in and they're always kind of worrying," Grant County Sheriff Steve Bay told Hatewatch. "What better place to pick up some land if you want to get something established?"

A post Thursday on the white nationalist Internet forum Stormfront indicated April Gaede, a noted white nationalist who lives in Montana, also owns property in Leith with her husband, Mark Harrington.

Schock said Cobb had a job in road construction and never mentioned his plans for the parcels that he bought.

"As of now we're just kind of waiting. The guy has done nothing wrong. There's not a lot that we can do except wait and see if he's going to pursue this," the mayor said.

"Obviously, we don't want him or anybody to take over the city, take over the local government."

Cobb is wanted by police in Canada, where he was charged in 2010 with "willful promotion of hatred." Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Cobb operated the Podblanc video-sharing website from various locations around Vancouver, "promoting hatred of people based on ethnicity and religion," according to Canadian media reports.

Cobb left Canada before being charged, and since there is no comparable charge in the U.S. for inciting hatred, the RCMP said he can't be extradited, The Toronto Star reported.

http://news.msn.com/us/white-suprema...th-dakota-town

Last edited by Mr A.Anderson; December 8th, 2013 at 11:26 AM.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #5
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White supremacist said he's staying

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/stat...a4bcf887a.html

7 minutes ago • By Lauren Donovan

LEITH , N.D. — Craig Cobb lives in a house with no running water and whatever he needs to protect himself, short of someone throwing a Molotov cocktail through the picture window facing the dirt street he lives on in Leith.

The visual of someone throwing a firebomb in to his house seems to pass through his mind as he watches a few vehicles — some turning around for a second and third pass — drive past his house with its overgrown, grasshopper-infested lawn and dead trees threatening to tumble on his property.

He knows he's not wanted in Leith, farming town of 19 people in Grant County.

In the past week, people have learned that this thin, gray-haired man who uses a cane, partly for effect, is an internationally known white supremacist who's been buying property in town to create his own white enclave, where Nazi flags fly proudly and like-minded people could take over the community.

Cobb, 61, owns 12 other lots and has transferred ownership to four other extreme white supremacists, including Tom Metzger, a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon and founder of White Aryan Resistance.

The Tribune broke the story of Cobb's plans for Leith Wednesday night. By Thursday, after nearly 100,000 people looked at the story on the paper's website and other media picked it up, his job supervisor pulled him aside.

Cobb had been driving pilot car and flagging on a N.D. Highway 22 road construction crew south of Killdeer.

He said he slept in his car, a small Ford Festiva, during the week and drove home when he had a few days off.

Cobb was standing out on the hot asphalt when his boss pulled up to have a word. He fired him on the spot.

"The supposed reason was that my notoriety put the crew in danger," Cobb said Saturday.

He left, but not before saying that laws protect people from being fired for religious and political associations outside the purview of his job.

"I wasn't angry. I’ve experienced this before, but it was a little shocking. This is the best job I’ve ever had, nobody bothered me and I was alone with my thoughts," he said.

He said he was fired by Border States Paving, of Fargo. The Tribune was unable to contact Border States on Saturday and left a voice mail with company president Dan Thompson to confirm Cobb's story.

He said one of his co-workers hugged him when he learned about Cobb's white supremacist views. He said many workers in the oil patch feel the same way, "that whites are being dispossessed in our own country. Oil workers are all racists; they prefer their own race. They all want to be witnesses on my job. They're sympathetic to my message," he said.

In fact, he said, North Dakotans "are pretty darned racist, they just don't talk about it."

In conversation, those views pour forth in a verbal stream, laced with profanity, f-bombs, words like the n word, "retard," "Jew" and putdowns of women, who he said lack intelligence and are only good four days a month. Most young people are "dysfunctional retards that have been raised by single mothers," he said.

Cobb wanted to stroll around the block from his house, where the old Leith jail still stands under cottonwood trees, a small concrete structure with no door and two cells in the rear with bars and metals doors.

He said he'd love to use the building to jail leftists, or Bolsheviks, in a day when he and others like him control Leith.

It would only take 17 people, he figures.

He avoided jail in Canada by fleeing in 2010 after being arrested on hate crime charges by the Canadian government. He said he fled Canada and lived in a dugout in Montana, eventually making his way to the oil patch, looking for work.

At the same time, people who live in Leith were reeling from the discovery of Cobb's intentions for their town, they woke last Sunday to find that two men from Wisconsin had set up a tent and were clearing the growth from around a dilapidated house on one of Cobb's properties.

The two men, Michael Bencz and Tim Westergard, denied any association with Cobb, other than finding a cheap property he was selling through Craig's List. The pair cleaned the property, fastened a blue tarp over the roof and were gone by Friday.

Cobb backed their story.

"He's (Bencz) not a white nationalist at all. He thought the property was pretty cheap, but he doesn't have any association with me," Cobb said.

He didn't like that the Grant County Sheriff asked the men for identification and ran their identity through police data bases after getting calls from Leith.

"For people to descend on them like locusts was not right. If a (expletive) homosexual came in, they're not going to descend on him, are they?" he said.

Jobless for now, Cobb is home in Leith. He said a Leith resident came over to his house Saturday afternoon, upset after reading about Cobb's white nationalist plans for town.

"He asked me if I want to sell. I'm not even doing that. I'm not going to other people's houses and asking if they want to sell their property to me. That's inherently rude. I wouldn't even do that to Bobby (Harper, a neighbor who's a black American)," he said.

Cobb said he reported the man to the Grant County Sheriff.

Bobby Harper and his wife Sherrill Harper have lived in Leith for years, most recently caring for Sherrill Harper's mother, who died in the midst of all last week's turmoil.

Bobby Harper said the Cobb situation was unsettling, but he was willing to talk about it because he wanted people outside Leith to be aware of what's going on in their small town.

"The more people who know, the better," he said. He said he'd welcome people who come to improve the town, but that Cobb and the like bring hate, instead.

Cobb said the publicity has been good for his cause and that since the Tribune's initial story, more than a dozen people have expressed interest in joining him in Leith. Land values might go up, he said

He ended up in Leith by happenstance, searching for cheap housing while working as truck driver in Watford City. He said he was fired from that job for confronting a co-worker's son about his work habits.

He said Leith is lovely and pastoral and it made sense to buy lots there, rather than start his own community.

"It has a history and it's been lived in. The electricity is subsidized by the federal government," he said.

The white nationalist movement has made attempts before to create all-white enclaves, in Oregon and Montana. Mark Potok, a hate crimes expert and editor of the Alabama-based Intelligence Report magazine and Hatewatch website, said Cobb's property acquisition in Leith is serious and represents the most successful attempt to build an all-white enclave so far.

"This is much further advanced than anything we've seen," Potok said. He also labeled Cobb, "One of the most vicious, neo-Nazi activists around."

Cobb said Potok uses that kind of rhetoric to raise money for his cause from rich, elderly Jewish women.

He said Leith has nothing to fear from him and that he's the one who should be most worried. He extends a hand with a heavy silver ring.

"This is a 'Totenkopf' and it means I'm willing to die for my people. I'm not anxious for it, but if it is, it is," he said. "I'm not a violent person. If they use weaponry against me, I'd be like, 'All right, let's go.' If I lose, I'm a martyr," he said. He denies being paranoid.

Cobb's discourse ends back in front of his house with its flaking paint and where he bathes in water he buys by the jug. It is a long way from the Boston Nob Hill home he says he was raised in by a father who has since disinherited him for fear he'd do a "Timothy McVeigh" with the money. In 1995, McVeigh detonated a truck bomb in front of a federal building in Oklahoma City., Okla., killing 168 people.

"It looks pathetic, but my expenses are low and my assets are high," he said. He said he's not planning to leave Leith and he has no doubts about his vision for an all-white community with music festivals and a news service for Aryan whites.

"Things take time. It's going to happen," he said.

Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 701-220-5511 or [email protected].

Last edited by Mr A.Anderson; December 8th, 2013 at 11:27 AM.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #6
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Craig Paul Cobb, 61, has purchased a home and 12 vacant properties in Leith, North Dakota — a town of just 19 people — in an attempt to establish an all-Neo-Nazi city with "likeminded volk," according to Raw Story. Cobb, who was previously arrested in Canada on charges of the willful promotion of hatred, likely chose the area because North Dakota is 90% white and Leith's county, Grant, is 97%.

In a post on Vanguard News Network Forum in May of 2012, Cobb detailed the requirements of setting up camp on the property:

1. Always (24 hrs a day) fly at least one racialist banner: examples—Nazi flags, Creativity flags, SA triple 7 flags etc. The larger the better. It would be best if your flag(s) were spotlighted during night time hours. I may be able to provide fresh ones say, 4 times per year. (Or I may let you pay and get your own).

2. Try your best to import more responsible radical hard core WN.


"Pioneer Little Europe" has been floating as a concept among White Nationalists since 2001, and was last attempted by April Gaede (mother of infamous White Supremacist singing twins Prussian Blue) in Montana. However, Cobb's efforts have come significantly farther than Gaede's.

Understandably, Mayor Ryan Schock's office has been deluged with calls — not least from Sherrill and Bobby Harper, the latter being the only black resident of Leith. The couple has come under attack and received threats since speaking to the Bismark Tribune about living in a town deluged by White Nationalists. On one message board, a user called Sherrill "a … race-mixing white woman [who has] no place in a White nation." (She replies: I'm not sorry it's out there. The more people who know, the better.")

Cobb isn't a garden-variety powerless hate-monger, either: according to extremism expert and Hatewatch editor Mark Potok, "He's one of the most vicious neo-Nazi activists around." How was Cobb able to secure his purchases of these 13 properties before anyone figured out who he was or what his plan was? That might be the most disturbing part. Not that it's by a landslide, as you can see in Cobb's mission statement:

For starters, we could declare a Mexican illegal invaders and Israeli Mossad/IDF spies no-go zone. If leftist journalists or antis come and try to make trouble, they just might break one of our local ordinances and would have to be arrested by our town constable. See?"

He's also forged a prision unit, intended to:



“lock up recalcitrant journalists and lefty commies who violate the codes or peace of the community.”


Potok predicts that Cobb's plan will fall apart now that it's been exposed.

Jezebel.com
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #7
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Default August 21, 2013

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/loca...9bb2963f4.html



Caption:This home and 12 other lots are now owned by Craig Paul Cobb, a white supremacist who is trying to create a community of people like him in Leith. He has transferred two lots to men with a national white supremacy profile.

August 21, 2013 6:15 pm • By Lauren Donovan

Mayor: 'Everybody's wound up' over plans for white supremacist takeover of N.D. town

LEITH — A man wanted in Canada for hate crimes has been quietly living in a small Grant County town, slowly buying up lots and property with plans to create a white nationalist community off the radar and close to good-paying jobs in the Bakken. Craig Paul Cobb, 61, owns a two-story house in Leith, a town of 19 people between Carson and Elgin, and 12 other lots, according to county records. Cobb is a known white supremacist who advocates racial holy war and is promoting his property in Leith to others like him.

Cobb didn’t answer his door Tuesday and it’s believed he works during the week on a highway construction crew in the Killdeer area. Numerous efforts to reach him on his apparent cellphone were unsuccessful. In a posting on the Internet, Cobb invites like-minded nationalists to join him in Leith to fly Nazi flags and other racialist banners and bring more “hard core” white nationalists. He said anyone moving to Leith should become a resident and vote in the local elections.

In the posting, threaded through the white supremacist Vanguard News website, he writes: “A few well know (sic) WN (White Nationalists) know of this plan; fewer still know the exact place. Suffice to say, you could also make it into the Bakken area to go for a job there too. I want people to move now and quietly get going here without letting the cat out of the bag.”

Creating ‘Cobbsville’

Cobb has been living in town for about a year and until recently, people knew little if anything about him, except that he was buying up vacant property, mostly from absentee owners, for a few hundred dollars a lot.

His reasons for owning property in Leith became public during one of his frequent stops at the Grant County Courthouse. Asked by county employees why he was buying so many lots, he said he planned to buy up as much property as he could and rename the town “Cobbsville,” said Tax Director Muriel Ulrich. Fearing some sort of takeover, but still in the dark about his larger plans for a community of white nationalists like himself, local residents started buying up vacant lots to prevent Cobb from buying more, Ulrich said. “After that there was a lot of activity. I’ve been here 34 years and there have never been any transactions in Leith. Pretty much all the lots are sold now,” she said.

County records show that Cobb has since transferred ownership of two lots: one to Tom Metzger, a former grand dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in California, which founded the White Aryan Resistance, and another to Alex Linder, originator of the Vanguard News Network, a white supremacist website. The full scope of Cobb’s plans for Leith became even clearer to residents when Ryan Lenz went to Leith last week. Lenz is a writer for Hatewatch, an investigative magazine published by Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights group. Lenz met with Leith Mayor Ryan Schock and Schock said he had trouble believing what he was hearing.
Lenz told the mayor about Cobb’s plans to fill Leith with white supremacists and take over the town through property ownership and elections.

The mayor, a family man who farms and drives the local school bus, said the whole thing sounded like “a flippin’ fairy tale. None of us had checked out this guy. Nobody paid attention for a whole year, is why it’s gotten as far as it’s gotten.” It didn’t seem so much like a fairy tale Sunday, when the few people who live in Leith woke up to find that two men had come in before dawn and set up a tent on one of Cobb’s lots.

The tangled overgrown property on the far northwest side of the village contains a small white house that has stood empty and dilapidated for decades. The roof is partially caved in and the inside has an overpowering smell of decay and animal urine.

Activity

By then, word had gotten around that Cobb, whose straggling gray hair and beard had been attracting attention in nearby Elgin, along with his habit of sitting on a main street bench to use free Wi-Fi from the public library, had plans for Leith. Within hours, Grant County Sheriff Steve Bay got a call to check on the two men, who were already at work clearing overgrowth from around the old house on Cobb’s property. “It was pretty out of the ordinary, the out-of-state license plates and living behind the trees in a tent,” he said.

He identified the men and ran their names through police databases. “They are from Wisconsin and they have no criminal warrants. They said they were here to rejuvenate the lots. They’re not trespassing,” Bay said.

Charges in Canada

In the days between when Lenz, the magazine investigator, came to town and visited with the sheriff and before the two strangers showed up with their tent Sunday, Bay said he’d done some checking on Cobb. He said the Border Patrol told him Canada is not interested in extraditing Cobb on 2010 federal charges of willful promotion of hatred.

Bay said Cobb has dual citizenship and the two countries would have to formally agree on extradition, apparently a moot point because Canada isn’t pursuing the matter to the extent of formally moving him back into Canadian custody, even though Cobb is no longer in hiding. The sheriff said he can’t simply arrest him and present him to Canada on its charges, nor does he have any reason to take action in Leith. “He hasn’t broken any laws here,” the sheriff said. He plans to keep a close watch on Leith, which will get more patrol time than it ever has.

Bay said he’s made further inquiries about the two men living in the tent, but as of Wednesday, had no information that they’re associated with Cobb. Michael Bencz, in his 40s, and Tim Westergard, in his 60s, were still working Tuesday to clear the yard of overgrowth and debris and junk from inside the house. The two men — who say they’re stepfather and son — said they have no relationship to Cobb and have no affiliation with or interest in white supremacist politics.

Bencz said his only contact with Cobb was to buy the property, which he found on Craigslist.org, an Internet site. The ad lists the house for $4,300 and the other two lots for $3,300 each. It gives a lengthy location and description and says, “This edifice can still be saved. You can run livestock or horses in town. You could use an electric compost toilet.” The ad says nothing about Cobb or his political beliefs. It lists what’s apparently Cobb’s cellphone number, but the phone’s voicemail box is full and no one answered repeated calls by the Tribune.

Bencz said he’s made a down payment on the house and two adjoining lots, but the property is still listed under Cobb’s name at the courthouse, according to the county tax director. He said his only interest in Leith is to live the dream of a prairie house in a quiet peaceful place away from the tourist trap of Wisconsin Dells, where he lives now. Bencz, who said he’s employed in hotel maintenance, wanted the whole story about Cobb and why he (Bencz) is being linked with him in local thinking. He said he got a whiff of Cobb’s politics when he saw him in Leith. “If he thinks he can do a conversion, he’s barking up the wrong tree. I don’t believe in hate crimes. We really want to get this cleared up. We’re not here for that,” he said.

Westergard said he was in Leith to help Bencz get a handle on the work the house needs. He said Cobb is Cobb’s problem, “as long as it doesn’t affect (Bencz) to be here with his wife in the environment they chose.” Westergard said, “If there’s trouble that touches us here, then we’re going to go on the side of the authorities.”

Since Cobb isn’t available to explain, it’s a mystery why he chose Leith, though a small, mostly ghost town would be attractive for its cheap, unwanted property and few neighbors. Some of his thinking might be explained by the following excerpt about his plans for a white nationalist community in North Dakota:

“Until political control were established, there would be the slight possibility that new local regs designed to limit our expansion might be tried. We could oppose those if that happenstance were implemented. The numericals are absolutely miniscule. However, dedicated, hard-working folks are needed. Imagine strolling over to your neighbors to discuss world politics with nearly all like-minded volk. Imagine the international publicity and usefulness to our cause! For starters, we could declare a Mexican illegal invaders and Israeli Mossad/IDF spies no-go zone. If leftist journalists or antis come and try to make trouble, they just might break one of our local ordinances and would have to be arrested by our town constable. See?”

‘They are not welcome’

Perhaps Cobb wants to set up his community in a place that has a very small, if any, non-white demo-graphic. However, there is one black man who lives in Leith and the revelations of the past few days have been unsettling to say the least, said Bobby Harper and his wife, Cheryl Parsons Harper. The Harpers have been married for 11 years and have been caring for Cheryl Harper’s elderly mother in Leith. Cheryl Harper said she’s worried about the possibility that Leith could become a community of white supremacists like Cobb envisions. “That does put a different spin on it because my husband would be a target,” she said. “They are not welcome as far as I’m concerned.”

Bobby Harper said the situation’s already had an effect on him.

“I’m more aware of who I speak to, and if I stop speaking to people, they already took something from me,” Bobby Harper said. He said he would do what he had to do were Cobb or others associated with him to show disrespect or harm him. “They can have that ugly stuff in their mind as long as they’re not bringing it toward me,” he said.

He said he wants everyone to understand what’s going on in Leith. “The more the word gets out, the better chance that we can move him out. People are welcome if they’re here to improve our community, but they’re here to bring hate,” Bobby Harper said.

Schock, the Leith mayor, said he’s making inquiries about the city’s rights and responsibilities and said Cobb has a right to live in the community and think what he wants. “I’m trying to find out what we can do. I guess I want to get to the bottom of it and find out what his intentions are and what he stands for, if it is his plan to take over the town,” the mayor said.

The sheriff said Cobb is not associated with violence and he isn’t worried about public safety. “But if we see strange names and strange license plates, we’ll run them through (databases). It starts legitimate, but Waco (Texas) started little and look what happened,” Bay said.

Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 701-220-5511 or lauren @ westriv.com.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #8
Mr A.Anderson
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Default August 26, 2013

Wanted in Canada, white supremacist from Vancouver seeks to turn North Dakota town into a neo-Nazi enclave


By Jennifer Saltman, The Province August 26, 2013


A former Vancouver resident who is wanted in Canada for hate crimes has alarmed residents of a North Dakota community with his plans to turn the area into a haven for white supremacists.

Craig Paul Cobb has purchased 12 lots in Leith, N.D., over the past two years and hopes to buy more there and in neighbouring towns as his finances allow. He’s encouraging like-minded “white nationalists” to move to the area and do the same.

“I’ve always had the Little Europe concept in mind,” said Cobb during a telephone interview Monday.

Cobb, 62, was arrested in June 2010 for allegedly promoting hatred through his website Podblanc. He was released from custody and fled Canada before he was charged in December 2010 with wilful promotion of hatred. Cobb holds dual citizenship in Canada and the U.S.

Authorities in B.C. are aware of Cobb’s activities and location, and are in regular contact with U.S. law enforcement, but Cobb cannot be extradited. Extradition is allowed only for offences alleged as crimes in both jurisdictions, and there is no charge similar to wilful promotion of hatred in the U.S.

Grant County Sheriff Steve Bay said his office knows about Cobb and has increased patrols in Leith since Cobb’s plans came to light. Beyond keeping an eye on the situation, there’s nothing he can do because Cobb hasn’t broken any laws.

“There has been a tremendous amount of concern,” Bay said Monday, noting that his phone was ringing off the hook last week with calls from Leith residents. “They were worried that he was going to take over the local city government or start a community of like people ... There’s no doubt about it, that’s still his intent.”

In a May 2012 posting on the Vanguard News Network forum, Cobb said Leith is a town that “we can politically control post haste.”

He advised that potential residents should commit to flying at least one racialist banner (such as a Nazi flag) 24 hours a day, try to import “more responsible, radical, hard-core white nationalists” and register as a legal resident of Leith so they can vote in local elections and elect like-minded people.

Cobb said Monday that, to some extent, he’s still deciding how the community would look. A racial history theme park and museum, private parks dedicated to racist icons such as Adolf Hitler, a prison for “white-hating lefty Bolsheviks,” a bar and Western-style storefronts have been floated as ideas.

Drawing on a suggestion from someone in an online forum, Cobb said the new community could be called “Cobbsville.”

The notion of “Cobbsville” or an all-white territory is not new, said Alan Dutton of the Vancouver-based Canadian Anti-racism Education and Research Society.

“It’s been tried before, but I hope it fails,” he said. “It’s something we should abhor. It’s ridiculous of him to try to set up an all-white town.”

There is likely little town officials can do at this point because the sales were private transactions, said Dutton. But authorities should keep an eye on Cobb should he begin promoting racism openly, he noted.

While Cobb should be brought to justice on the hate charges in Canada, Dutton said, he will also be glad to see the last of him.

“The further away Craig Cobb moves ... from Canada, the better for everybody.”

Although he was fired from his job with a paving company last week, Cobb said he’s planning to stay in Leith and continue encouraging “armchair activists” to move to the area.

Bay described Leith (population 19) and Grant County as rural, farming communities and said he’s not convinced Cobb will be successful in setting up a racist enclave.

“I just don’t believe it’s going to happen, especially now that the word is out,” Bay said.

Even though the Canada-wide warrant for Cobb’s arrest remains in effect, and if he is discovered in Canada he will be arrested, Cobb said he has crossed the border on more than one occasion. He expressed love for his country and at the same time lamented how “intolerant” Canada has become.

“I’m still a Canadian. You guys don’t make me feel like it, but I still am,” he said. “I miss Canada — I wish there were a national movement to let Craig Cobb come home.”

[email protected]

twitter.com/jensaltman

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Whit...908/story.html
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #9
Mr A.Anderson
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Default August 28, 2013

White Supremacist Craig Cobb Defends Plans for North Dakota Town on New Hate Forum

Heidi Beirich on August 28, 2013

[...] is the owner of the new racist web forum White Nations.

White supremacists are atwitter after the disclosure by Hatewatch last week that Craig Cobb and other extremists have been buying up properties in the tiny town of Leith, N.D., with the intention of creating an all-white enclave.

Lengthy threads have popped up on the hate forums Stormfront and Vanguard News Network (VNN), with many white supremacists endorsing the idea of a white living space. But most of the action is taking place in a relatively new Internet forum, White Nations, which started this past May after its owner, “Fred O’Malley,” was kicked off VNN.

Craig Cobb wants to build a park to honor William Pierce, the neo-Nazi founder of the National Alliance, in the vacant lot on the left in Leith, N.D.

It is clear from Cobb’s posts on White Nations that he hasn’t given up on his dream of a white homeland, even given the bad press and uproar in Leith that has come in the wake of Hatewatch’s investigation. To show that he is staying put in Leith, Cobb has posted pictures of his plans for the town. As an example, he put up one photo showing the site where he intends to create “Dr. William L. Pierce Pvt. Park of Leith,” in honor of the longtime leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance.

Cobb has received nothing but positive support on White Nations. That is especially true about its founder “Fred O’Malley,” with whom he is clearly close, based on an interview with Cobb by the SPLC. In the real world, O’Malley is actually [...] or “[...]” as Cobb called him during the interview. For some time, [...] had been posting on VNN on various topics, including why women need to “STAY AWAY FROM NIGGERS” and how “Guns level the field with government goons.” [In the past, [...] has targeted the SPLC, posting a picture at one point of a staffer’s wife]. His posts on his new site are in the same racist vein.



[...] owns a remodeling and roofing company, [...], in [...] (there is a Ripoff Report on the company here). He was booted from VNN earlier this year along with other prominent white supremacists, including Cobb, after a series of sophomoric exchanges. In the interview with the SPLC, Cobb refused to explain why he and [...] were kicked off VNN. Repeated calls to [...] phone were not returned.

White Nations is also moderated by [...], who posts there as “WitchesChild.” On Stormfront and VNN, Slay goes as “WolfsCompass” and “BrennaWolf.” She did not return phone calls for comment.

Cobb’s White Nations posts have been defiant, and he continues his aggressive promotion of North Dakota as a homeland for white supremacists. One post made the point that fellow white supremacist and Leith property owner April Gaede and her “mate” [...] have earned as much as $1,500 a week for doing unskilled labor that is in high demand due to the state’s oil and gas boom. Cobb is also publicizing how close one of the boomtowns, Dickinson, is to Leith, and encouraging white supremacists to call realtors and say this: “I am interested in buying some property in the Grant County, Leith, Carson, Elgin, New Leipzig, Mott, Lark and Flasher areas. I heard about Craig Cobb’s project in Leith. The Third Reich, NS, and Hitler are mentioned in our holy religious texts, but I am not a Neo Nazi, whatever that is. Can you send me your MLS list or advise me? Would that be OK?”

In another post, Cobb confirmed that he was fired by Border States Paving of Fargo and he has written about possibly filing a complaint with the EEOC over his dismissal. He has asked his fellow white supremacists to write to the company to complain. Many of them have, for which Cobb has effusively thanked them. Cobb is also looking into whether he has somehow been the victim of housing discrimination.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/0...ew-hate-forum/
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #11
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Default August 29, 2013

New Neighbor’s Agenda: White Power Takeover



Paul Craig Cobb, 61, has been buying up property in this town of 24 people in an effort to transform it into a colony for white supremacists. More Photos »

By JOHN ELIGON

August 29, 2013

LEITH, N.D. — The bearded man with thinning, gray-and-bleach-blond hair flapping down his neck first appeared in this tiny agricultural town last year, quietly and inconspicuously roaming the crackly dirt roads.

Nettie Ketterling thought nothing of it when he came into her bar to charge his cellphone in an outlet beneath the mounted head of a mule deer. To Kenneth Zimmerman, the man was just another customer, bringing his blue Dodge Durango in for repairs. Bobby Harper did not blink when the man appeared in front of his house and asked him if he had any land to sell. And the mayor, Ryan Schock, was simply extending a civic courtesy when he swung by the man’s house to introduce himself.

Their new neighbor, they thought, was just another person looking to get closer to the lucrative oil fields in western North Dakota known as the Bakken.

But all that changed last week.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and The Bismarck Tribune revealed that the man, Paul Craig Cobb, 61, has been buying up property in this town of 24 people in an effort to transform it into a colony for white supremacists.

In the past two years, Mr. Cobb, a longtime proselytizer for white supremacy who is wanted in Canada on charges of promoting hatred, has bought a dozen plots of land in Leith (pronounced Leeth) and has sold or transferred ownership of some of them to a couple of like-minded white nationalists.

He is using Craigslist and white power message boards to entice others in the movement to take refuge in Leith, about two hours southwest of Bismarck. On one board, he detailed his vision for the community — an enclave where residents fly “racialist” banners, where they are able to import enough “responsible hard core” white nationalists to take control of the town government, where “leftist journalists or antis” who “come and try to make trouble” will face arrest.

The revelations have riveted this community and the surrounding area, drawing a range of reactions from disgust to disbelief to curiosity.

“If that man wanted to live in Leith and be a good neighbor and be decent and not push his thoughts on the people, then he could live there,” said Arlene Wells, 82, a farmer and local historian. “But to come in and want to change everything and be the big dog — no. I don’t like bulldogs.”

It is all people are talking about, in bars and in their homes, at funerals and at church. They are poking around on the Web to read Mr. Cobb’s positions for themselves. A stream of cars creep through the streets where horses occasionally trot, their passengers hoping to catch a glimpse of some action or take a peek at Mr. Cobb’s peeling, two-story clapboard home. Sheriff’s cars, too, are making more rounds.

This is not how residents wanted Leith to get back on the map. Founded in 1909, the town bustled in the middle of the century, a regional center for festivals, movies and skating. The population began slipping after peaking at 174 in 1930, but the death knell was the closing of the railroad some 30 years ago. Though the 2010 census said the population is 16, Mr. Schock puts it at 24, and the Leith Bar is the only one of the five remaining buildings on Main Street still open. Most lots are empty and overgrown, laden with high-flying grasshoppers, in this town that sits in a bowl surrounded by wheat and sunflower fields.

Mr. Cobb happened upon the community, he said, through an ad for the home he eventually bought on Craigslist. He paid a total of about $8,600 for the house and 12 plots, he said, making his first purchases in 2011. He moved here in May 2012, he said, after fleeing Canada in 2010 to avoid the criminal charges. He spent some time in Montana, before coming to North Dakota to find work in the oil patch. He said he lost his construction job last week after the story broke.

People have knocked on Mr. Cobb’s red door to offer to buy back his land and to preach the Gospel. The City Council is looking into potential ordinance or health code violations (his home has no septic tank or running water). There is a doomsday plan in place, Mr. Schock explained: If enough of Mr. Cobb’s friends move in to gain a majority that could vote out the current government, the Council would immediately dissolve the town.

Mr. Harper, Leith’s only black resident, said a lot of people approached him at his mother-in-law’s funeral on Monday to tell him they had his back.

“People told me to leave town for the weekend and they’d take care of everything,” he said.

But he and his wife, Sherrill — who found herself referred to as a “filthy race-mixing white woman” in one of Mr. Cobb’s online posts — said they were not going anywhere.

Mr. Cobb, meanwhile, seems to be soaking in the publicity and mocking it.

“Just want to let you know I’m not going to cause any trouble,” he said to Don Hauge, 61, who rolled up in a red Chevy pickup truck to where Mr. Cobb was sitting on a bench, peering through smudged rectangular glasses that slid down the bridge of his nose. Mr. Cobb is a lanky figure, dressed neatly in a button-down shirt tucked into slender black slacks he says he bought from someone who had stolen them, and rubber sandals.

In rapid-fire speech, Mr. Cobb cuts through a vast trove of facts and thoughts in his head, inevitably veering toward racial slurs. But he maintained a soft, calm tone, and was friendly when chatting with a black reporter who knocked on his door this week. He said he admired Louis Farrakhan because “he organizes people and they’re for themselves.”

But in that interview he also said that he hoped his plans in Leith would “excite” white people and “give them confidence because we’re being deracinated in our own country. We’ve been very, very tolerant about these major sociological changes.”

His beliefs began developing at an early age, he said — he read Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” when he was 11. To hear him tell it, he has had a colorful, nomadic life that has brought him face to face with James (Whitey) Bulger (the mob boss piloted the tugboat he rode to boarding school in Boston) and Barack Obama (he claims to have driven the future president in his taxi in Hawaii in the early 1980s).

It is difficult to tell whether Mr. Cobb wants or expects his vision for Leith to succeed.

Although he said that four fellow white nationalists have bought or acquired some of his plots, he said he did not know if or when they would be moving to the town, nor would he push the issue on them.

He gave the community’s run-down former meat locker and creamery to the National Socialist Movement. Jeff Schoep, the movement’s leader, said he was unsure how easy it would be for people, in a tough economy, to pack up and head to Leith. But he said he thought it was a fantastic idea to establish a community for white nationalists so they could have a safe place to land in a crisis — say, a civil war.

“I would like to see it prosper and move forward,” Mr. Schoep said. “People should move there and get the process going. It gives us a base of support for elections and things like that.”

But as Ms. Ketterling has been hearing from her bar patrons all week, residents would rather see the venture fail.

“They’re not happy,” she said. “We don’t like that kind of stuff.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/us...l?pagewanted=2
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #12
Mr A.Anderson
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Leith residents consider options in dealing with supremacist

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/stat...9bb2963f4.html

21 hours ago • Associated Press

LEITH, N.D. — This community is mobilizing to fight out of fear that a white supremacist could succeed in taking over the town, and the mayor has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure Craig Cobb's dream remains just that. Cobb, 61, a self-described white supremacist, has purchased about a dozen lots in the community about 60 miles southwest of Bismarck. Over the past year, he's invited fellow white supremacists to move there and help him to transform the town of 16 people into a white enclave. No one has come.

About two dozen people — mostly residents of Leith and concerned friends from neighboring towns — showed up recently for an impromptu meeting in nearby Carson. "We all share kind of the same concerns that people living in the community of Leith have — just the unknown,"said Kathy Hoff, who lives just south of the town and attended the meeting.

Officials are considering enforcing health codes and ordinances relating to the upkeep of Cobb's run-down property. A proposal to disband Leith's government and turn over control to the county is even on the table. "He would still own his property," said Mayor Ryan Schock, a 38-year-old farmer and lifelong Leith resident. "But ... he can't control the city if there's no city government."

No decisions have been made, but the six-member town council that usually convenes once a month might call a special meeting to discuss the matter soon, Schock said.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #13
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The small town of Leith in Southwestern North Dakota received some alarming news Thursday when it found out members of a white supremacist group are planning to visit at the end of the month.

The National Socialist Movement said its Commander and several members will visit land it purchased from a man in Leith and hold a press conference on September 22nd and 23rd. The man who sold the land is Craig Cobb, a supremacist who has been in the media lately after it revealed his attempts to quietly turn Leith into a white supremacist community. Cobb bought several pieces of property in the town to sell to other white rights activists. The purpose of the NSM visit is to inspect its property in Leith and assist Cobb in putting up ceremonial flag poles, according to a press release.

"We do have every intention to legally assume control of the local government as our numbers increase in the area, and more of our folk move into the town," NSM Commander Jeff Schoep said. "This trip to Leith is a symbolic gesture of goodwill and faith as we plant the seeds of National Socialism firmly into North Dakota soil."

http://www.kmot.com/story/23351800/leigh-follow-up
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #15
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Default September 7, 2013

White nationalists aim to take over tiny North Dakota town
By Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 10:32 AM EDT, Sat September 7, 2013

(CNN) -- The words "welcome to Leith" are etched on two wooden boards, nailed to a pair of poles stuck in the grassy North Dakota prairie. With wildflowers immediately to the front, a dirt road yards away and a few stray buildings and trees in the distance, the sign seems appropriately simple for the tiny town.

Yet in the last few weeks, Leith has become anything but.

Paul Craig Cobb wants to transform the tiny town 70 miles southwest of Bismarck into a community that mirrors his white supremacist views. He did so quietly at first, asking residents whether their land was for sale. But recent reports from The New York Times and the Southern Poverty Law Center exposed his mission and turned it into a national story.

In an interview with The New York Times, Cobb said he hoped his plans in Leith would "excite" white people and "give them confidence because we're being deracinated in our own country."

"We've been very, very tolerant about these major sociological changes," he said, according to the paper.

Stuck in the middle is Leith's lone black resident, Bobby Harper. He's known Leith as a nice, peaceful place where "everybody got along, we basically could leave our doors unlocked, and there was no fear that nobody wanting to harm us."

Thanks to Cobb, Harper now feels under threat, and he said his townsfolk do, too.

"If he can't love his fellow man, then we ask God to help him with something," Harper said Friday about Cobb. "Because I'm not very happy, and the people in this town aren't very happy."

Leith is part of Grant County, which according to its official website is North Dakota's third largest county by land mass at more than 1 million acres. While the communities once buzzed with activity from nearby railroads, nowadays it's decidedly more quiet.

That certainly was true of Leith. The U.S. Census bureau says it has a population of 16 people, though other estimates run higher -- though not beyond 25 residents.

Among them is Harper's wife, Sherrill. Her mother grew up in Leith and, today, she and her husband call it home.

"I have roots in this town," she told CNN's John Berman on Friday night, alongside Bobby. "I have a reason to be here."

Sherill Harper recalls running into Cobb last year and he asked her if she had property for sale. She said no.

Bobby Harper said Cobb asked him the same question.

"He has the audacity to even ask me for information to buy land, and his intentions were to harm my way of life?" he said. "... That's very, very uncomfortable for me."

How successful was Cobb, who is wanted in Canada on hate speech charges, in buying up the town? The Harpers say that residents have been overwhelmingly supportive.

But the Southern Poverty Law Center notes that white nationalist April Gaede and her husband claimed, on an online message board, to have property in the town. So, too, has Jeff Schoep -- commander of the Nationalist Socialist Movement, which he describes as the "largest pro-white organization" in the United States "involved in the struggle for white civil rights."

In an open letter to Leith Mayor Ryan Schock, Schoep announced that he and members of his group would be heading to Leith on September 22 and 23 with "a simple message that Craig Cobb will NOT be ousted from the community."

"Craig is not breaking any laws or ordinances, and has a right to reside in Leith just as any other American does," Schoep writes, just before mentioning how he owns an old meat packing/creamery building in town.

He adds later, "If anything, you should see this for what it is, a chance at revitalizing a community."

These comments have been echoed on white nationalist online message boards such as WhiteNations.com and Stormfront. Posters there have applauded Cobb for "doing a great job" and jibing critics as "laughable, pathetic what this country has come to."

The Harpers have felt their wrath, including a letter they received Friday that read, in part: "I want you to leave your "husband" and go join Mr. Cobb's movement. Do it now! Separation of the races forever!"

The target of that missive, Sherrill Harper, says that's just one of many she's received calling a "filthy, race-mixing white woman" and "pea-brained."

"It made me afraid," she said. "If his goal is to just have only white people here, where do my husband and I go?"

Sherrill has nothing but kind words for her neighbors, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do or how this story will end.

She admits, "I think we're unsure as to what to do. We'll just have to wait and see."

Cobb said his friends have bought or acquired some of his plots, but he does now know when they will move to the town.


http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/07/us/nor...nn-disqus-area
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #16
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White nationalists aim to take over tiny North Dakota town
By Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 2:41 PM EDT, Tue September 10, 2013


Town takes on white supremacist
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
• Leith, North Dakota, is a town of a few dozen people, only one of whom is black
• Paul Craig Cobb has been trying to turn it into a white nationalist community
• The town's lone black resident and his wife feel threatened and uncertain


(CNN) -- The words "welcome to Leith" are etched on two wooden boards, nailed to a pair of poles stuck in the grassy North Dakota prairie. With wildflowers immediately to the front, a dirt road yards away and a few stray buildings and trees in the distance, the sign seems appropriately simple for the tiny town.

Yet in the last few weeks, Leith has become anything but simple.

Paul Craig Cobb wants to transform the town 70 miles southwest of Bismarck into a community that mirrors his white supremacist views. He did so quietly at first, asking residents whether their land was for sale. But recent reports from The New York Times and the Southern Poverty Law Center exposed his mission and turned it into a national story.

In an interview with The New York Times, Cobb said he hoped his plans in Leith would "excite" white people and "give them confidence because we're being deracinated in our own country."

"We've been very, very tolerant about these major sociological changes," he said, according to the paper.

Stuck in the middle is Leith's lone black resident, Bobby Harper. He's known Leith as a nice, peaceful place where "everybody got along, we basically could leave our doors unlocked, and there was no fear that nobody wanting to harm us."

Thanks to Cobb, Harper now feels under threat, and he said his townsfolk do, too.

"If he can't love his fellow man, then we ask God to help him with something," Harper said Friday about Cobb. "Because I'm not very happy, and the people in this town aren't very happy."

Leith is part of Grant County, which according to its official website is North Dakota's third largest county by land mass at more than 1 million acres. While the communities once buzzed with activity from nearby railroads, nowadays it's decidedly more quiet.

That certainly was true of Leith. The U.S. Census bureau says it has a population of 16 people, though other estimates run higher -- though not beyond 25 residents.

Among them is Harper's wife, Sherrill. Her mother grew up in Leith and, today, she and her husband call it home.

"I have roots in this town," she told CNN's John Berman on Friday night, alongside Bobby. "I have a reason to be here."

Sherill Harper recalls running into Cobb last year and he asked her if she had property for sale. She said no.

Bobby Harper said Cobb asked him the same question.

"He has the audacity to even ask me for information to buy land, and his intentions were to harm my way of life?" he said. "... That's very, very uncomfortable for me."

How successful was Cobb, who is wanted in Canada on hate speech charges, in buying up the town? The Harpers say that residents have been overwhelmingly supportive of them.

But the Southern Poverty Law Center notes that white nationalist April Gaede and her husband claimed, on an online message board, to have property in the town. So, too, has Jeff Schoep -- commander of the Nationalist Socialist Movement, which he describes as the "largest pro-white organization" in the United States "involved in the struggle for white civil rights."

In an open letter to Leith Mayor Ryan Schock, Schoep announced that he and members of his group would be heading to Leith on September 22 and 23 with "a simple message that Craig Cobb will NOT be ousted from the community."

"Craig is not breaking any laws or ordinances, and has a right to reside in Leith just as any other American does," Schoep writes, just before mentioning how he owns an old meat packing/creamery building in town.
He adds later, "If anything, you should see this for what it is, a chance at revitalizing a community."

These comments have been echoed on white nationalist online message boards such as WhiteNations.com and Stormfront. Posters there have applauded Cobb for "doing a great job" and jibing critics as "laughable, pathetic what this country has come to."

The Harpers have felt their wrath, including a letter they received Friday that read, in part: "I want you to leave your "husband" and go join Mr. Cobb's movement. Do it now! Separation of the races forever!"

The target of that missive, Sherrill Harper, says that's just one of many she's received calling her a "filthy, race-mixing white woman" and "pea-brained."
"It made me afraid," she said. "If his goal is to just have only white people here, where do my husband and I go?"

Sherrill has nothing but kind words for her neighbors, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do or how this story will end.

She admits, "I think we're unsure as to what to do. We'll just have to wait and see."

Cobb said his friends have bought or acquired some of his plots, but he does not know when they will move to the town.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/07/us/nor...html?hpt=hp_t2
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #17
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Old December 8th, 2013 #18
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Default September 9, 2013

North Dakota student newspaper writer, Mary Ochs: It's shocking that pro-White people exist.


Equality still a problem in America

RACISM: Race continues to be a divide after decades of progress.

Mary Ochs, Columnist • September 9, 2013 • Leave a Comment
Equality still a problem in America

I thought the days of white supremacy and racial ignorance were over in the U.S.

Apparently, I was wrong.

In a tiny town about five hours southwest of Grand Forks, a man by the name of Paul Craig Cobb is attempting an ignorant task. He is trying to buy up land in this little town and invite other white nationalists — like himself — to come live there. He intends to buy all the property and force out all races except Caucasians.

Sound crazy? Yeah, I thought so, too.

The town of Leith, N.D. reportedly has approximately 25 residents — not that influential of a number in the grand scheme of things. However, that is no reason to attempt to force out other races. As the story goes, Cobb started off his scheme by asking residents of Leith if they had property for sale. He never told them why, but was simply inquiring. According to CNN.com, Leith has a single African- American resident named Bobby Harper who is married to a white woman. The two have gotten their fair share of hate mail from supporters of Cobb, but also have received some inspiring support from their fellow townsmen.

I honestly can’t believe this is actually happening.

Does this Cobb fellow understand how far America has come in equalizing different races? The minute anyone utters racial slurs or discriminates on television or radio, the media explodes. We are a culture that no longer tolerates racism. Sure, there are still plenty of racist individuals roaming around out there, but our society finds it despicable to broadcast their views so openly. I can’t fathom what Cobb is thinking. It’ll be a phenomenon if his crazy plan goes through.

Cobb isn’t the only white nationalist who is seeking residence in Leith. Individuals such as April Gaede and Nationalist Socialist Movement commander Jeff Schoep claim to have land in Leith as well. Between letters to the mayor of Leith, online postings, and direct communication with the Harpers, the media has exposed several of the nationalist’s pro-white comments, including:

“…we’re being ‘deracinated’ in our own country,”

“If anything, you should see this for what it is, a chance at revitalizing a community,”

“…laughable, pathetic what this country has come to,” and

“…filthy, race-mixing white woman.”

These are quotes from white nationalists, courtesy of CNN, who disapprove of the Harpers for being an multi-race couple. Gaede and Schoep also believe Cobb is right to “revitalize” the community and make it strictly Caucasian.

It obviously isn’t right. It’s disheartening to see that America hasn’t fully moved past discrimination.

I don’t care if this is just a tiny town in the middle-of-nowhere North Dakota. Actions such as these affect us all. It hurts us as a nation when we have individuals ignorant enough to assume that one race is superior. You would think we had learned from our bloodstained past racial discrimination isn’t the answer. It doesn’t do any good to assume one race is dominant over another. Each American citizen is entitled to reside wherever they choose. It is correct that Cobb isn’t breaking any laws in his efforts to buy out the town’s land, but his reasoning behind it is wrong.

We are all guilty of feeling frustrated or impatience at various races for not assimilating quickly enough or at all to the American ways. It’s normal to have these feelings when our way of life is disrupted. But the fact of the matter is that the Harpers are not in any way disrupting a way of life. They are a part of that town. Both Bobby Harper and his wife Sherrill have ties to the town and have no reason to be ousted.

It’s shocking to discover such ignorance still exists. I have no idea how this whole ordeal will go down, but I’m sure the Harpers won’t go down without a fight. Luckily, it seems like their fellow townsmen are standing by their side. It’s stories like these that trigger other culturally ignorant people to lash out. I fear for what other circumstances could arise, especially following in the wake of so many shootings and bombings in our nation as of late. However, I truly hope America as a whole can continue to rise above situations such as this Leith town “reform” and start getting our act together.

Mary Ochs is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]



http://www.dakotastudent.com/739/opi...ca-2/#comments
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #19
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Protest against white supremacist group's leader's visit planned in Leith

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/eve...icle/id/71973/



FARGO — Three former residents of the Fargo-Moorhead area are organizing a protest of this month’s planned visit to the western North Dakota town of Leith by a man who claims to lead a white supremacist group.

Jeff Schoep, commander of the National Socialist Movement, stated in a letter posted on the group’s website that he, some of his executive staff and affiliates plan to visit the town about 70 miles southwest of Bismarck on Sept. 22-23 for a “fact-finding tour.”

One of their goals is “to make clear a simple message that Craig Cobb will NOT be ousted from the community,” the letter states.

Cobb has purchased a dozen properties in Leith in the past two years and has encouraged fellow white supremacists to join him there to turn the town of 16 people into a white nationalist community.

Leith landed in the national spotlight last month after the Southern Poverty Law Center and Bismarck Tribune broke the story about Cobb’s plans, including that he had given property to two well-known white supremacists, Alex Linder and Tom Metzger, a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Scott Garman, who grew up in Casselton, and Cade Ferris and Jeremy Kelly, both Moorhead, Minn., natives, are organizing the protest.

They became friends in high school through the F-M punk music scene and are past members of Anti-Racist Action, an activist group that got its start

in Minneapolis in 1988, said Garman, now a 44-year-old special education teacher in Little Falls, Minn.

“So we all have a history of this, of not letting Nazi hate speech go unanswered,” Garman said, adding that Cobb’s story didn’t seem like a big deal until he saw that the National Socialist Movement was coming to North Dakota. “We decided it was time to let them know that it’s not welcome.”

Kelly said the Sept. 22 protest “is about what’s right and protecting the people who live in this state from hatred.” [More like censoring people from views Kelly decided they shouldn't hear]

It’s unknown how many people will take part in the protest, Garman said. He said he sent out about 180 invitations via the Facebook page he created to promote the protest, which he said has been “just going nuts with messages and comments and likes.” He said he’s soliciting donations through the page so that people otherwise unable to afford the 530-mile round trip can attend the protest, adding he’ll be “super happy if 50 people” make the trip from the Fargo-Moorhead area.

“I’ve had offers of donations from lots of people originally from Fargo who now live out of state and stuff because they can’t make it, so I mean, just tons of support,” he said.

Kelly, who lives in Bismarck and works at an emergency shelter, said he’s borrowing a 15-passenger van from a friend who also has a bus if needed.

“I’m really hoping that a lot of people from around here, this region, in the Bismarck community, will go,” he said.

Ferris, a former tribal historian and now an archeologist in Belcourt on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, hopes to get Native Americans involved in the protest, Garman said.

Kelly said the protesters will rendezvous at noon Sept. 22 at a truck stop in the southeast corner of Exit 161 off Interstate 94, the Bismarck Expressway exit, and then caravan to Leith.

Garman said he contacted the Grant County Sheriff’s Office to inform Sheriff Steve Bay about the protest, which he said will be peaceful.

“We are not going to seek violence, but anything that happens there is going to be their fault,” he said, referring to the National Socialist Movement. [ We all know the ARA's "non-violent" approach of bashing people heads with pipes and throwing bags of piss ]

Bay did not return a phone message left Wednesday afternoon.

A listed phone number for Schoep could not be found. He did not respond to an email sent Wednesday to the address listed for him on the group’s website.

Brian Culpepper, who holds the rank of captain in the National Socialist Movement and serves as its director of public relations and “stormtroops” leader, said he couldn’t give out Schoep’s phone number. Culpepper said he hasn’t been involved in planning the Leith visit and that only Schoep could release details about it.

Told about the planned protest, Culpepper said, “That’s just another day in the office to us, so what?”

Culpepper said the National Socialist Movement is “not trying to reform the Third Reich in America,” but rather is looking for reform of certain government programs closer in line with the group’s ideals – though he added there are “solid lessons to be learned” from the economic policies of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler’s leadership.

Culpepper, who said he lives in the Knoxville, Tenn., area, called Anti-Racist Action “a domestic terrorist group.” He criticized counter-protesters for wanting to silence the opposition while having their own viewpoints heard.

“The disciples of tolerance and diversity are the ones that have become the true fascist wing in America today and seek to suppress other people’s First Amendment freedoms,” he said. “It’s not us. We encourage debate.”

Schoep claims in his letter that he owns property in Leith: the old meatpacking/creamery building and a lot next to Cobb’s residence. Cobb is still the recorded owner of the property, according to the Grant County tax director.

Garman said the protest is planned for just the one day, but there may be more in the future.

“We’ll see how it goes and then we’ll see where the story goes from there, and if we have to go back and back and back and back, we will,” he said.
 
Old December 8th, 2013 #20
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Nationalists plan to build all-white city in North Dakota
Posted by EU Times on Aug 25th, 2013 // 1 Comment
</body>



A 61-year-old white nationalist is trying to turn his small town in North Dakota into a stronghold for white supremacists.

Paul Craig Cobb, a white nationalist who lives in Leith, N.D., is quickly buying properties in the small town, which has a population of 19 people. Abandoned houses are scattered throughout the desolate town and there is only one storefront business for miles.

“I didn’t have a clue who the guy was until he showed up. All I know is he bought that house sight unseen, $5,000 cash, and had no idea what it looked like, where it was, other than he knew the directions to get to Leith,” Mayor Ryan Schock told the Hatewatch blog, which is a media project by an anti-white ‘civil rights’ group called the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Cobb hopes to turn Leith into a haven for white supremacists. Last year, he posted in an online forum called Vanguard News Network (VNN), claiming that he will build an all-white bastion of racists as fast as possible. Ultimately, he wants white nationalists and neo-Nazis to take over the country and control the government. He also hopes to rename the town “Cobbsville”.

Tenants of Cobb’s properties will be required to fly a “racialist banner”, such as the Nazi flag, on a daily basis. They would also be required to become legal residents of the state for voting purposes, as well as join his recruiting effort to attract “radical, hard-core” white nationalists.

North Dakota is already 90 percent white, and Grant County – where Cobb currently lives – is 97 percent white, according to the US Census. But for Cobb, the racial diversity in his state is still too high for him to be satisfied.
Racist organizations across the country have already supported the 61-year-old’s vision. Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance, purchased one of Cobb’s abandoned lots for $1 – a move that is largely symbolic. Alex Linder, operator of VVN, also purchased a lot. Cobb told the Hatewatch blog that he also donated several buildings to the National Socialist Movement, which the New York Times in 2011 described as “the largest supremacist group, with about 400 members in 32 states.”

“Imagine strolling over to your neighbors to discuss world politics with nearly all like-minded folk,” Cobb wrote last year in the VNN. “Imagine the international publicity and usefulness to our cause! For starters, we could declare a Mexican illegal invaders and Israeli Mossad/IDF spies no-go zone. If leftist journalists or antis come and try to make trouble, they just might break one of our local ordinances and would have to be arrested by our town constable.”

In 2010, Cobb, who has both US and Canadian citizenship, was arrested in Canada on federal charges of willful promotion of hatred. Grant County Sherriff Steve Bay told the Bismarck Tribune that he will keep an eye on Leith, but that Canada has no interest in extraditing the man on hate crime charges.

Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report and Hatewatch blog, said people should be concerned about Cobb, since “he’s one of the most vicious neo-Nazi activists around.”

But now that the media has caught wind of Cobb’s plans, both Potok believes the Craig Cobb will fail in his endeavor to create a white supremacist haven. Bobby and Sherrill Harper, a mixed race couple that currently resides in Leith, said they were vilified on a white activism website, but that it only helps the word about Cobb’s racist intentions get out and be put to a stop.
“The more the word gets out, the better chance that we can move him out,” Sherrill Harper told the Bismarck Tribune.

“People are welcome if they’re here to improve our community, but they’re here to bring hate,” Bobby Harper added. However what Cobb is trying to do is to “ensure the survival for white Americans which in recent years have been declining and could so go extinct if nothing is done to stop it.”

http://www.eutimes.net/2013/08/natio...-north-dakota/
 
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