Outside the Beltway

A group of researchers at Texas Tech, The University of Texas, and Yale University are conducting an online survey investigating social media use and political attitudes and behaviors.

A new look at Clarence Thomas’s 20 years on the Supreme Court, from a critic, is surprisingly positive.

Is America’s political system to blame for our current problems?

Under new policies, deportation efforts will be concentrated on people who pose a threat to society. It’s a sensible policy, so of course it’s being denounced.

Not surprisingly, people still order that big juicy cheeseburger even after being told it contains over 1,000 calories.

Usually, Defendants plead guilty for perfectly rational reasons.

The venerable Brooks Brothers is getting into the college apparel business, selling sweaters and polos for Boston College; the U.S. Naval Academy, Auburn, Cornell, Harvard, New York, Ohio State, Princeton, Stanford, and Vanderbilt Universities and the Universities of Alabama, Georgia, Notre Dame and Virginia.

Ppartisan politics no longer stops at the water’s edge. This is a bad sign for the Republic.

More on the whole “republic not a democracy” discussion.

Once again, Congressional abdication has led to an Executive Branch power grab.

Requiring people with ethical conflicts to disclose them leads to more bad behavior, not less, a new study finds.

While elite schools confer many advantages on their graduates, they also wall them off from normal people and create an entitled, out-of-touch elite.

With all the birther talk these days, it’s probably time to question whether we even need the “natural born citizen” rule anymore.

79% do not think Ivy League students make better workers. 18% are undecided.

Cap’n Crunch is going the way of Joe Camel.

James Franco is a film director, screenwriter, painter, author, performance artist and actor. And working on a PhD at Yale.

Pfc. Bradley Manning faces twenty-two new charges, including one that could put him before a firing squad, but investigators still can’t prove any direct links between him and Wikileaks.

The American military personnel system works against keeping the best and brightest officers in the service.

The repeal of DADT may open the doors for ROTC to return to many elite institutions, if cost doesn’t get in the way.

Do graduates of elite colleges earn more because of where they went to school? Or because of the traits that got them selected?

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen argues that it’s time to put the debate over the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill mess to rest. He’s right.

Charles Murray argues that the Tea Party is right to complain about out-of-touch elites.

The story about the private security guards who “arrested” a journalist at a Joe Miller campaign event just keeps getting stranger by the day.

The skyrocketing cost of tuition makes it harder for students to justify getting a liberal arts education rather than training for a high paying job.

A third of the Forbes 50 were born billionaires. Does that mean the game is fixed?

America’s elite universities have proportionately fewer slots than their English and French counterparts. Does it matter?

Lisa Murkowski is the worst kind of sore loser candidate, willing to screw over her party’s voters and her own donors to keep her seat

Washington Monthly ranks colleges “based on what they are doing for the country — on whether they’re improving social mobility, producing research, and promoting public service” rather than “wealth, exclusivity, and prestige.” Too bad they don’t hire that way.

Harvard has overtaken Princeton to retake the top spot in the US News college rankings.

General Stanley McChrystal has been hired to teach leadership at Yale.

The concentration of policy wonks in the Washington-New York-Boston corridor produces skewed analysis.

It’s time for the Gingrich For President speculation to begin again.

Yesterday’s ruling by a federal judge declaring the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional is likely to collapse on appeal.

Law schools are artificially raising student grades, sometimes retroactively, to make them more competitive on the job market.