Senator Conrad Burns Says Terrorists Drive Taxis by Day and Kill at Night

NYT/AP: Burns Says Terrorists Drive Taxis by Day
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 31, 2006

BELGRADE, Mont. (AP) -- Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, whose recent comments have stirred controversy, says the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who ''drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night.''

During a fundraiser Wednesday with first lady Laura Bush, the three-term Montana senator talked about terrorism, tax cuts and the money he has brought to his state. Burns is one of the more vulnerable Senate incumbents, facing a tough challenge from Democrat Jon Tester.

He has drawn criticism in recent weeks for calling his house painter a ''nice little Guatemalan man'' during a June speech. Burns, whose re-election campaign is pressing for tighter immigration controls, also suggested that the man might be an illegal immigrant. The campaign later said the worker is legal.

Burns, 71, also had to apologize after confronting members of a firefighting team at the Billings airport and telling them they had done a ''piss-poor job,'' according to a state report. In July, the Hotshot crew had traveled 2,000 miles from Staunton, Va., to help dig fire lines for about a week around a 143-square-mile wildfire east of Billings.

At the campaign event with Bush, Burns talked about the war on terrorism, saying a ''faceless enemy'' of terrorists ''drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night.''...

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Burns-Terrorism.html?_r=1&oref=login

REQUIREMENT that one must be bat-shit crazy to be a Republican??

mikey_the_rat

But then again, wasn't that always a right-wing requirement?

Cooksey, an arch-conservative Republican, is planning to run against Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat nearing the end of her first term.Cooksey made news last week for some comments about airport security and racial profiling in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"If I see someone comes in that's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over," Cooksey said during an interview with Louisiana Radio Network.

Cooksey's comment came last Monday, the same day that President Bush, a fellow Republican, visited an Islamic mosque and praised mainstream Islam as a religion of peace

with these words. I don't think this is your average insane Republican blurting. Let me elaborate:

- The vast majority of prisoners beaten, tortured and raped in Abu Grahib were just ordinary joes, regular folks, construction workers, taxi drivers, etc. They were either caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or they were sold to the Americans by neighbors that were trying to settle old scores. Eventually the US had to recognize that after all that torture, senseless beatings, and rapes, the vast majority of those that went through Abu Grhaib were innocent.

- Similarly, the vast majority of those captured, tortured and imprisoned in Guantanamo were regular folks, many of them taxi drivers. Many of them sold to the Americans by neighbors trying g to settle scores. Most of them never had any connection to Al Qaeda, yet they were beaten, tortured, and imprisoned without access to layers.

These things have a name: WAR CRIMES. There's no two ways about it.

The Bush admin. has a serious problem, as they may face serious legal problems if they lose congress or senate in November.

Their solution is to prepare the PR front to convince the morons that still listen to these bastards that somehow "all those taxi drivers were really terrorists."

OK, show us the evidence then. Back up that assertion. More importantly: CHARGE THESE PRISONERS WITH AN ACTUAL CRIME instead and keeping them locked without access to a lawyer or a trial.

I suspect the memo has gone out from Rove: we're sunk unless we can ratchet up the "war" mentality and scare enough people. Thus, while the Repugs from Bush on down made a point of distinguishing between Muslims (good) and Muslim extremists (bad), the new G.O.P. approach requires painting all Arabs and Muslims (except, of course, the Saudi royal family) as irredeemably evil and all out to kill us all or at least kill enough of us to force Islam down the rest of our throats. Get us paranoid and scared enough, and maybe we'll come running to Daddy in the White House to protect us from the Big Bad Muslim Wolves.

Will it work? Who knows, but as H.L. Mencken is often quoted as saying, "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." :-(

Don Vito Corleone is jealous of these guys




Especially when Abdullah give the CHIMP the WET TONGUE.

That if they had any shame they'd be embarrassed by their party "stalwarts."

How do dipshits like this get elected, anyhoo? I think we need to start thinking about that more. Or at least that might be my advice to Montanans, if you don't mind me saying so. I know there are a hell of a lot more rational people--everywhere--than is represented by the likes of this schmuck.

I have had the pleasure of passing through Belgrade, Montana. It didn't strike me as the sort of place that terrists would want to hit. Of course, I favor appeasement.

And I'm sure so are his constituents. Maybe when he attended his Campaign Meetings with Rove, he got confused with the Urban Senators talking points. I betcha Rove wanted the Rural Senators to blame Tractor drivers. lol!

They're losing their minds....what a glorious sight to behold.

that's where the airport for the Bozeman metropolitan area is located. It handles a fair amount of traffic for Yellowstone NP as well as Bozeman.

Still....

in critique of this statement. That's not and insignificant point I think.

Laura crashed her big Impala into a former boyfriend's little Corvair one night in 1963, and killed him. It was reported as an accident, but it was Laura's fault: she ran a stop sign, on a clear night, with a good view of the road in all directions. Rumor has it the boy she killed had been a former boyfriend, and he had dumped her for another girl, which Laura didn't like. No doubt it was this quality that attracted George to her in the first place.

Laura Bush has to be pretty corrupt to marry into The Bush Crime Family™ and support them as long as she has. She should just drop the school marm bit, no one believes it.

unfortunately I don't think I agree with "no one believes it"

Seems like a lot of people do unfortunately. Perhaps not an majority anymore but still many.

...it highlights how desperate the Republicans are becoming. By shrilly repeating the tired old song and making even more outrageous statements on "terror", they are alienating even more and more "swing voters". Keep it up!! I say let them have their false "talking points". The house of cards is quickly collapsing.

They used to be at least subtle about it. Now they're down to shouting "Your cabbie is a terrorist"! Where can the rhetoric possibly go from here?

and don't speak English. And have names that no one can pronounce. And take the long way to the airport to jack up the fare.

News and commentary, left to right

not one.

To my arabic friends... I am white and born into a Christian family, but I and many like myself, are not part of their bigotry.

:kick:

I'm afraid this race is going to turn out like Kentucky in 2004. An incumbent GOP senator who isn't even very popular in the state goes around saying crazy shit, and it looks like a good chance for a Dem pickup, but then he barely squeezes through at the last minute. That's also how Burns was re-elected in 2000. But, on the plus side, those were both Presidential election years in which Bush carried those states by huge margins. Perhaps since this is a midterm, it provides a better opporunity. I certainly hope so.

The Republican Party. All racism, all the time.

It's one big racismorgasbørd: "All you can hate."

We have a winner...

only 20 responses before someone called him what he is...a bona fide racist. Just like Allen.

Talk about exposure.

Surely they have a breaking point!

Burns wasn't running then. The new Dem Governor got some good press early on, though I haven't heard much from him in a while

Most Montanans have not minded his racism or sexism enough to kick him out.

However, the attacks on the firefighters (it was a range fire in hilly short grass scrublands that actually did not even damage many of the scattered pines there, so even more of a dumb thing to have attacked these people who came all this way to save marginal grazing lands) did have an effect, as has his falling asleep during his so-called "field hearings"

(he is a potential lame duck, who could ultimately have no effect on any legislation the hearings are supposed to be about, so it's the height of presumptuousness to be holding field hearings instead of answering voters questions) he is holding throughout Montana of late.

The 2000 campaign against him by Schweitzer (52-47% Burns) put more than a few lumps on him that he has never recovered from and this new guy who is a farmer and real Montanan is here to deliver the knockout punches.

In the country, you don't need no stinking cab. You're self-reliant, and would never need someone to drive you around, harrumph, much less some dirty Ay-rab probably gonna blow up the school tomorrow - harrumph.

It's very strange. The Republicans have fully adopted these coded rhetorics of racism and anti-cosmopolitanism for so long that they are actually starting to spout it automatically, and some may even believe it. That'll probably be their undoing. Republicans were successful so long as they could deploy these rhetorical tricks strategically, coded for special audiences, damn near imperceptible to others. Now, they just shout it out willy-nilly, as if they've forgotten it wasn't an actual belief, but just a cynical rhetorical strategy. As a rhetorical strategy it was, no doubt, disgusting. But as an actual belief it is openly dangerous on the one hand, but also remarkably silly on the other.

I've said before that that's why the GOP will implode. Karl Rove is great at winning elections, but he's screwing his party in the long run. The GOP is now being over-run by the nutjob fringe that Bush and Rove just wanted to get votes from. Take the Federal Marriage Amendment for example. Cheney has even been on the record as being in favor of gay marriage, and while Bush is a lot of things, I don't think in his heart he's really a homophobe - he just acted like one to get re-elected. That's why he brought up gay marriage right before the election, and never mentioned it again - because it's not an important issue to him at all. But then they started hearing from those people, plus there started to be GOP Senators and Congressmen who actually BELIEVE all that stuff, and they're outraged about Bush's inaction on "their" issues. A perhaps even better example is immigration. Despite his many faults, Bush has been pretty good on this issue IMO. That's why we're seeing an unusual situation with that issue where the Dems are mostly supportive of Bush, and many GOPers are extremely angry. By pandering to the racists to get into office, he now has to deal with them being part of the conservative coaltion. This is why pandering like that is despicable and doesn't work in the long run.

All those latte liberals have furriners chauffering them around in cabs like driving miss daisy. They're so stupid they don't even know that those subhuman Ay-rabs are plotting to blow them up. In fact all those dummy DUers ever do is cry about how good clear-minded Americans are "trampling on the liberties" of their terrorist chauffers.

Now maybe I SHOULD - just to vote this idiot out of office!

raise you up a crop of dental floss? ;-)

raisin' it up
waxin it down!

I wondered if anybody would have caught how I wrote that!

house? Isn't he breaking the law? As a Senator, can't he find out if the guy is legal before hiring him? This guy sounds like a racist asshole to me. It figures Ms. Laura Stepford was with him.

9/11, Oklahoma City, Madrid trains, London bombs. I seem to recall they were all in daylight.

On "MAKIN MISCHIEF" Day. Crazy bastards like making LOTS of money too how dare they appropriate AMERICAN VALUES! :sarcasm:

I see what he is doing in trying to evoke fear. His people have taken a Taxi Driver stereotype and ran with it. It is completely absurd and should be treated as such. In fact this is probably in need of some political Judo action.

I would point out that Taxi-Drivers occupy one of those high risk jobs exposed to violence and robbery quite frequently. And it takes little thought to ask him where he got his information on all these "Killer Cabbie's." This should be the punchline to his campaign for the next month or so at least.

Amazing how he managed to get increased funding for his state while advocating tax cuts. Definitely Newt Gingrich austerity at work here.

it's usually the cabbies who drive during the day, and GET killed at night, not the other way around.

He got into a cab and there was a Sikh driving and the turban FREAKED HIM OUT.

These guys ought to get out more.

for the "Counter-Convention". and the Republicans freaked ME out!:patriot:

And one more time- if you want to stop all potential terrorism, then stop stealing oil, installing puppet governments, meddling in the affairs of other countries.


Ie, stop terrorizing!

But the price will be a more difficult to achieve lifestyle for Americans. I'm game.

Completely agree. It wouldn't be that hard to not be doing all this shit that is completely dooming our society, and indeed the earth.

How did Republicans become such utter assholes? I know the Dems aren't much to crow about, for the most part, but their "reality" is absurd to the point of being tragic opera buffa.

I imagine Teddy Roosevelt just riding down the line, bitch-slapping those who sully the very word Republican.

Oh, and by the way, Georgie and all you Creepy Freeper Georgie Lovers, T.R. actually read books.

Sheesh.

Just listening to what happened during the last 72 hours of the war. Israel dropped 100,000 cluster bombs on Lebanon. Many were made in the USA. Those kids will be injured for years to come, just like those unexploded bombs in Vietnam. It's about money and greed. But I don't think that answers your question. The way only good explanation I have is that it's all of the things that have been the driving force behind those who would be evil, with the added boost of petroleum. It's gasoline that has given us the accelleration. Everything has sped up. That's it in a nutshell.

Welcome to DU. We may not be rosey, but we care.

The downfall of Empire does indeed occur really quite quickly, doesn't it?

And my question should have perhaps been more rhetorical, but we forget that these forces are simply playing into the psycho-sociological framework of ultra-conservatism and lack of education.

This excessive militarism--way over the top, at this point--combined with these neocon endgames is greatly disconcerting, of course.

However, a society that fuels itself on the dead remains of other civilizations should perhaps deserve its fate.

If he wasn't up for re-election, I wouldn't waste my time commenting on such drivel.

All the Terrorists in my town can scarcely be bothered kill for more than a few hours in the afternoon, let alone work a full-time day job and then head out for a night of murder and mayhem.

on edit: Note to Freepers and Homeland Security lurkers: That was :sarcasm: I don't actually know any terrorists.

everything important in it by night.

Watch out Mr. Burns.

..power plant head that "terrorizes" his employees??

"EXXXXCELLLENT";)

damned terra-ist cleaning women.

The headline sounds like the old b-movie, Angel (High school student by day, Hollywood hooker by night).

citizens anymore is in the U.S. Senate, or lobbying, or working as Defense Contractors.

Everyone else is illegal, lazy, or the enemy.

The Top 10 practically writes itself these days.

he's going to have to write a "Top 20" instead, LOL!

:7

So I have to do all my killing during the day. Of course its at night that I carry the bodies in my trunk and randomly dispose of them in local politician's yards.

Keep up the good work!

ok one on my coffee but don't tell the DMV.

Between George Allen, Conrad Burns, and Katherine Harris they have quite a crowd.

Taxi Driver by Day, Criminal Mastermind by Night! Hopefully Batman can stop them.

If they are "faceless", how can they see to drive a cab?

:silly:

Blame the DMV!!!

Does that mean subsidized fares? I sure hope Faux News can explain all of this to me.

Best to point fingers and flap lips without engaging logic, eh Conrad?

Let's talk labor laws, changing votes to allow for abuses after getting money from abusers... Let's talk about selling your vote Conrad!

:rofl:

That statement wasn't supposed to make us laugh, though, was it? About the killer cabdrivers? Is that supposed to scare us?

Here's to you, Mr. Burns:

Burns: Homer Simpson
Smithers: One of your drones in sector 7G
Exxcelllent!!

unfamiliar with the ways of the Human Race.

And the horror is that my comment makes more sense than the crap Burns spouts.

First it was the firefighters. Now it's the taxi cab drivers.
Who's next?

And can we get that on video?

Could make a hell of a counter-campaign ad.

How does burns know that terrorist are driving cabs in the daytime and killing at night. This is the kind of stupid rhetoic the republicans spew. How can anybody take them seriously. And is the Stepford Wife having the right strings pulled. Who's paying for her travels. bush seems to be running all over the country raising money for the republcians on the taxpayers dollars.

:kick:

has definitely fallen off the cracker

has popped.

Expains why he took the taxi, though LOL

;-)

:D

Yes, we in New York are simply quaking in our beds for fear of off-duty cabbies.

Of course, after a 16-hour day trying to make ends meet with current gas prices, I expect they do want to kill. They just haven't got the energy.

say anything you want to with impunity. After all, HRH Sen Burns gets carted around in limousines so he doesn't ever have to ride in a taxi like anybody else. In his mind, who cares what taxi drivers think.:puke:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060831/ap_on_el_se/burns_terrorism

BELGRADE, Mont. - Republican Sen. Conrad Burns (news, bio, voting record), whose recent comments have stirred controversy, says the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who "drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night."

During a fundraiser Wednesday with first lady Laura Bush, the three-term Montana senator talked about terrorism, tax cuts and the money he has brought to his state. Burns is one of the more vulnerable Senate incumbents, facing a tough challenge from Democrat Jon Tester.

At the campaign event with Bush, Burns talked about the war on terrorism, saying a "faceless enemy" of terrorists "drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night."

The campaign said Thursday that the senator was simply pointing out terrorists can be anywhere.

"In Washington, Senator Burns is a respected voice on the issues facing rural communities in Montana and across the nation," (Laura) Bush said.

I don't mean this to demean Montana I just don't think that this comment was aimed at Montana-onians.

Not taxi cab *companies* -- two dozen taxi vehicles.

on a side note

After watching Condi hamfist some piano playing a few weeks ago in Kuala Lampur I realized that the "prodigy" story about her might actually be made up to. I kind of assumed that at least that was true. Then I realized something else. The other part of her "great personal story" was about how accomplished an ice skater she was in her youth.

She was quite the accomplished ice skater...in Alabama...in the mid-early 60's.....amongst black females...in Alabama... in the mid-early 60's. I think that was a fairly narrow field much like Montana Taxi cabs.

of kneecapping their superior opponents.

He's toast in November anyway, so the more he says the better

They are members of your community right now working in various jobs and on Sunday's they get together at the baptist churches throughout the country. They want to rid our country of the constitution because it dares give liberties to people they hate in the name of Jesus Christ. They want to replace the constitution with the bible, the book they pick and choose in to suit whatever their goals might be. Yes senator, terrorists can be anywhere.

in America or Iraq? I'm confused.

:shrug:

I think this comment is meant not for the Montana crowd.

The average big city taxi driver causes more terror on a daily basis than a platoon of Al Quaeda boogiemen.

"In Washington, Senator Burns is a respected voice on the issues facing rural communities in Montana and across the nation," (Laura) Bush said.

I feel sorry for the rural communities of Montana.

How about the Metro, are they driving that too?

Conrad was probably just free-associating on the image of a swarthy furriner and thought: "taxi driver!"

Maybe he excluded white guys. Kick and Nom
This is why we need term limits and age limits.

and I'm not a terraist, I'm a journalist, check my journal for the stories. Equally dangerous in the eyes of the administration no doubt.

. . . and coult their ill-gotten gains by night.

such a sad day for mr. burns.

Brown people blowing buildings up or people doing honest work?

I would think the latter.

and they don't have too many ethnic cabbies over there, if at all. So I doubt the voters there (other than the few liberals) will even be offended. These politicians are smart. They know WHERE to unleash their offensive statements. Good ol' CONrad here's never gonna say such a thing in New York City, ya know what I mean?

... how many of our Arab taxi drivers, and our Arab bodega owners for that matter, have blown themselves up in murderous displays of terrorism!!!
I mean, you can't walk down the fucking street anymore without some Islamofascist blowing himself up in your face, killing everybody for blocks around. Why just the other day, I got killed TWICE by taxi drivers screaming "Durka-Durka Jihad!!!" It's all over the papers, of course, all the taxi drivers blowing shit up and killing and terrorizing the city and the entire nation. The worst part of it is that since so many of the taxi drivers have blown themselves and billions of innocent bystanders up, it's now IMPOSSIBLE to get a cab!

Obviously, the next thing that needs to happen is that CONRAD BURNS NEEDS TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO FUCK HIMSELF!!!

Oh, did I just YELL that? Sorry, I meant to say that Conrad Burns needs to shut the fuck up and go fuck himself. He's a scary fascist racist asshole and he needs to shut the fuck up and go fuck himself.

(I do hope that the :sarcasm: was understood. The part about the taxi drivers, not the part about about Burns. In fact, the other night, a taxi driver named, yes, Mohammed Ali drove us home and he was very nice, I gave him a good tip.)

purchase Falafal in Montana?

It all sounds ever-so-dangerous. He has me concerned.:crazy:

Oh, Mr. Burns is scary alright, just not in the way he meant to be.

They can't hide those bigotry commits in the closest, no matter how much they try. And as one person said earlier, I hope it's the beginning of the end of his political career. We don't need scum like him in our offices taking our hard-earned money.

What the hell else does he expect a terrorists to do, sit around all day with an anti Bush sign on his back.
Maybe the dumb ass hit on something. Why not give the bastards a job so they'll be so tired from putting in a hard days work that they'll need to get some sleep instead of making bombs.
From what I see there sure is a lot of work that needs to be done in their country.