The Daily Muck

Saudi financier Gaith Pharaon was indicted by the Justice Department for his alleged role in the BCCI scandal and is still wanted by the FBI. But no matter. The U.S. military has handed him an $80 million contract to supply jet fuel to American military bases in Afghanistan. (ABC)

An adviser to Sen. John McCain confirms that the GOP nominee now supports President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping policy, and that telecom companies involved in complying should not face ramifications. McCain’s view of the eavesdropping program seems to have shifted in recent weeks. (New York Times and Washington Post)

After weeks of wrangling with San Diego officials and community members, Blackwater Worldwide opened its 61,000-square-foot training facility in the Otay Mesa-area of San Diego. Members of the defense contractor wasted no time beginning their combat training. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

The first major war crimes tribunal arraignment at the Guantanamo Bay detention center ended with suspected 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed declaring his refusal of his U.S. military-provided defense and his wishes for the death penalty. (Miami Herald)

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that they will re-examine the decision to send suspected terrorist Maher Arar to Syria to be tortured after his capture in September 2002. While expelling Arar to another country was within the law, sending a detainee to a country that would almost certainly use torture against the prisoner is prohibited. (Washington Post)

Despite his claims to combat excessive pet projects in Congress, President Bush attended the opening of a lavish $100 milllion, earmark-funded site, the U.S. Institute of Peace, a project secured by earmarker-extraordinaire Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). (Associated Press)

A federal judge ordered former HeathSouth Corp. CEO Richard Scrushy to return to Alabama to testify in civil lawsuits stemming from fraud that crippled his rehab chain. Scrushy’s attorneys are fighting the ruling on the basis of inconvenience, saying Scrushy doesn’t want to leave his federal prison in Texas for a temporary stay in a county jail. (Associated Press)

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether insurer American International Group Inc. supplied faulty values to sub-prime mortgages. (Wall St. Journal sub. req.)