it turns out that dan burton apparently has at least a shred of decency (or wants us to think so). the indy star is now reporting that burton is going to take all that dirty money he received from jack abramoff and pals and donate it to charity:

"After hearing yesterday's guilty plea and statement by former lobbyist Mr. Jack Abramoff, I have immediately decided to do what is right and best," the Indianapolis Republican said in a statement.

Burton received $7,059 from Abramoff and his wife and $12,000 from Indian tribes, according to his office. Abramoff had several casino tribes as clients. Although Burton's office said it could not verify whether the contributions to Burton from the tribes were connected to Abramoff, Burton is donating them as well.

The money will be divided among three charities: the Autism Society of America, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the Eisenhower Medical Center.
Burton's wife died of breast cancer, and his grandson has autism.

this might be the only time you ever see this phrase on this blog, so here goes: kudos to dan burton for doing good.¶

over on this side: taylor has vocally refused to give back any dirty money he's received (scrutiny hooligans has more info on his refusal to give back any delay/TRMPAC $ here), and one of the blogasheville contributors called taylor's asheville office to ask why taylor hasn't given the money back yet and if he was planning to do so, seeing as how bushco has already given abramoff's "pioneer" $ to charity; he got the royal runaround. the asheville office told him that they don't handle "those types of issues" and put him through directly to taylor's dc office who, in turn, told him that he needed to contact the asheville office, and gave him the same number he called in the first place.

oh, we've got big plans for taylor; i'm just not at liberty to discuss any of them yet... ¶