This ain’t your daddy’s space race.

The United States and the other members of the P5+1 group (the permanent five members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) are entering “last chance” negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program in Istanbul this week.

On Tuesday, March 27, the Columbia Democrats and the Columbia University College Republicans held their final debate of the year, hosted and moderated by the Columbia Political Union.

Mitt Romney is supposed to be a numbers guy, and after 1,144 (the number of delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination), the number on his mind is 270.

This is a difficult, volatile issue in a time of small minds and big egos — good luck finding enough members of Congress willing to fall on the sword and make immigration reform a reality. But if any issue demands bipartisan care and attention, it is this one — we must find a way forward.

While President Obama still has a long way to go on the road to reelection, it is quickly becoming clear that the current set of Republican presidential candidates don’t have what we, in this country, used to call “the right stuff.”

A great deal has been written on President Obama’s continuation of many of the Bush administration’s policies in regards to terrorism. Growth in the size and operational tempo of special warfare units, the extensive use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against terrorist targets worldwide, and the National Security Agency's (NSA) ongoing warrantless surveillance programs – all of these began with President Bush.

The problem with megalomaniacs is that they never stick to the script. Newt Gingrich is one of the few men in American public life that can get away with saying whatever he wants. Whatever nuance exists in his public persona is masked by the verbal violence he does to anyone who gets in his way. The conventional wisdom is that this strength, by far his greatest, will be his undoing. The reality is more complicated.

This is supposed to be the week in which President Obama’s bid for re-election takes a populist, progressive turn. By positioning himself as the candidate who believes in giving the common man “a fair shot,” it is clear that the President hopes to turn his yet-to-be-determined Republican opponent into a straw man for the big banks and the one percent.

“Meet the new boss - same as the old boss.”

Since the beginning of its economic reforms in 1978, the People’s Republic of China has become our lender and our factory, our second-largest trading partner and our number one economic competitor.

Here’s the good news: the United States has enjoyed 20 years of unchallenged and unprecedented supremacy as a world power. The bad news?

Herman Cain and the Shape of the Tax Debate

You can say whatever you want about House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R- WI), but you can’t deny this—the man has cojones.