“Washington” on The Daily Caller

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Utah authorities have for at least six months investigated the disappearance of Susan Powell as a murder case. But without a body, they publicly held out hope that she would be found alive. (more)

GQ compiled its list of the 50 most powerful people in Washington, with GOP leaders taking the top spots, with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden left off the list. (more)

The texts of Barack Obama’s recent speeches seem tailor-made for softening the White House’s often hostile description of American business, but the president’s impromptu additions are highlighting his efforts to subordinate business to government. (more)

President Obama offered a positive, if muted, statement about the National Labor Relations Board’s decision to drop its complaint against aircraft manufacturer Boeing on Friday. (more)

SEATTLE (AP) — As Boeing executive Jim Albaugh spoke to an aerospace conference in New York, recent strikes by the company’s workers in Washington state weren’t far from his mind. (more)

ATLANTA (AP) — Federal agents arrested four suspected members of a Georgia militia on charges of plotting attacks with toxins and explosives in Atlanta and against unnamed government officials. (more)

President Barack Obama heated up his political rhetoric on Sunday at a number of different campaign events, saying Republicans’ small government views “will fundamentally cripple America.” (more)

Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, apparently having no crime to deter or corruption to investigate, declared Sept. 16 “Hayden Panettiere Day” in honor of the former child star and “Heroes” actress. (more)

NEW YORK (AP) — A new book offering an insider’s account of the White House’s response to the financial crisis says that U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ignored an order from President Barack Obama calling for reconstruction of major banks. (more)

The state of Washington has canceled the driver’s license of a journalist who, in a New York Times Magazine article last month, revealed that for 14 years he kept a secret from his U.S. employers: He is an illegal immigrant. (more)

Although they lack a clear presidential front-runner, Republican Party leaders are confident on their 2012 prospects when it comes to House races. National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) political director Mike Shields rattled off a list of Democrats nationwide they’re targeting in the upcoming cycle, including Reps. Jim Matheson of Utah, Adam Smith and Rick Larsen of Washington state, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Ben Chandler of Kentucky and John Barrow of Georgia. (more)

“Private Practice” star Kate Walsh will visit the nation’s capital on Wednesday to reflect on the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill that devastated the Gulf of Mexico. (more)

School choice advocates applauded a provision in the continuing resolution that funds the government for the rest of the year, which restores and strengthens the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for five years. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia is becoming the first U.S. jurisdiction to allow Internet gambling, trying to raise millions of dollars from the habits of online poker buffs and acting ahead of traditional gambling meccas like New Jersey and Nevada. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — D.C. leaders including the mayor took to the streets to protest congressional control of the nation’s capital, blocking traffic and getting arrested over a federal budget deal expected to impose renewed restrictions on the city. (more)

Washington vs. America–D.C. doesn’t doesn’t act like there’s a deficit problem: If you worry that the federal government can’t afford $38 billion in cuts, please read Chris Moody’s article from two weeks ago. There’s a $1.6 trillion deficit but the feds are still hiring. As of March 23 they were hiring someone to run a Facebook page for the Deparment of the Interior (at up to $115,000 a year). They were hiring equal opportunity compliance officers at the Peace Corps and Department of Interior for $150,000 to $180,000 a pop. They were hiring deputy speechwriters for officials at relatively obscure agencies. …P.S.: The point isn’t so much that these federal employees are overpaid, though they are. The point is that if there were any actual sense of a deficit crisis in Washington these are jobs that would not be filled at all. … Well, maybe the Facebook editor. I think that’s a critical investment necessary to win the future, don’t you? …  P.P.S.: That’s what’s so annoying about all the calls from respectable Beltwayish opinion leaders to stop cutting the non-defense discretionary budget and focus on entitlements, because ‘that’s where the big money is.’ From one perspective, this is a rational argument. That is where the big money is. From another perspective, it looks like a tacit conspiracy of Washingtonians not to sacrifice the jobs of any of their friends, or the local economy, by any kind of actual slimming down (of the sort a private company in similar straits would have undertaken years ago).  … In effect, the respectable ”pivot to entitlements” position says,”we’re going to cut Social Security checks and Medicare for mid-income old people to save the jobs of $180K equal opportunity officers at the DOT.” … Why not wring the fat out of government first? … Update: Here’s the current list of jobs the government is still filling. … (more)

The government may shut down, but the bars in Washington will be hopping with thousands of furloughed federal workers with extra time on their hands and reason to drink. It’ll be a great place to meet someone new. So, for all you “non-essentials” out there, here are the top 10 “government shutdown pick-up Lines,” courtesy of Twitter’s finest. (more)

“Who makes even Charlie Sheen’s rockstar spending look tame? Washington.” (more)

It’s that time of year again! (more)

Reporting from Washington and Sacramento— Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s assertion that he did not personally work for the government of Mexico when his lobbying firm represented the country a decade ago is contradicted by the firm’s own federal filings, which describe him as a leader of the team assigned to the account. (more)