Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Q: New Congress: My fellow Republicans, here's your chance to prove you can lead. This week marks a new era in American government . For the first time in the six years of the Obama administration, Republicans took the reins of power in both houses of Congress, bringing divided government to our nation's capital . With this new power comes not only responsibility, but also real challenges and opportunities . Yes, the newly empowered Republicans in the Senate have the ability to control the floor and try to break through some of the gridlock and dysfunction associated with the failed tenure of now Minority Leader Harry Reid . Instead of bottling up all the legislation that's been passed by the GOP House without ever letting it see the light of day, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can start moving things forward with up or down votes and a full, fair and thorough amendment process . He has pledged to get back to regular order and help re-establish trust between the American people and Congress . But even more importantly, the Senate can get to work on the issues of real importance to the people who elected them . Instead of pushing petty, politically motivated bills, or not voting just to protect one of the Democratic members from taking a tough vote, the Senate can focus on things that will have a direct impact on the American people . I am encouraged to see that the Keystone XL Pipeline is on the top of the docket . This common-sense, environmentally sound project will not only create good-paying jobs for both unions and non-union members, it will also increase our domestic supply of oil, helping to keep prices low and more money in people's pockets , and it will help to reduce the influence of foreign governments . It's unfortunate that President Obama continues to impede progress on Keystone and is standing with the radical fringe of his party rather than the overwhelming majority of the country . Likewise , now that the elections for leadership are over, House Speaker John Boehner needs to move immediately to unite his caucus and focus on the overwhelming areas of agreement within the GOP . Given that Republicans now boast their largest House majority since the late 1920s, it's not surprising that there have been, and will be, minor areas of difference within the caucus . But the things that unite us are so much more plentiful , and it's now the job of Speaker Boehner to focus on these issues . I was heartened to see the House Republicans roll out a series of bipartisan jobs bills this week, including legislation called the "Hire More Heroes Act." This bill would exempt veterans already enrolled in health care plans from the VA or Department of Defense from counting toward the employer mandate under ObamaCare . This is a win-win for both veterans and small businesses . Many businesses are not hiring because of ObamaCare's many mandates and new regulations , and this measure would be a good first step to help alleviate that problem . Above all ,  Republicans in Congress have to prove to the American people that they are responsible leaders who will put our country's interests first by being able to lead and get real results . They need to show that they have learned from the mistakes of the past and will stop lurching from cliff to cliff and forcing self-imposed government shutdowns that only tarnish the GOP brand and make it harder to win future elections . The new Republican Congress needs to make it impossible for the Democrats to falsely portray the Grand Old Party as a group of fire-breathing extremists focused on divisive social issues . History tells us that when we focus on the issues that really matter-- such as low taxes, getting our debt and deficit under control, limited government, returning power to the states and a strong and muscular national defense-- the American people are with us , and we win elections as a result . The simple reality is that even with a GOP Senate, there is only so much of President Obama's destructive agenda that we can work on repealing these next two years . Getting rid of ObamaCare and rolling back his overreaching executive orders and memos-- that's not going to happen if a Democratic president succeeds the current occupant in January 2017 . We Republicans have a slew of talented candidates who, over the next few months, will throw their hats into the ring and begin the process of running for the White House . The new GOP Congress needs to make sure it provides critical support and issue-oriented ammunition for our nominees -- not become unwelcome distractions that will hurt the brand and increase the Democrats' chances of retaining the White House . Let's make these next two years count, so that in January of 2017 a newly elected Republican president can take power with robust GOP majorities in Congress and really get this country back on the right path .

A: For the first time in the six years of the Obama administration, Republicans took the reins of power in both houses of Congress, bringing divided government to our nation's capital
****
Q: From Guantanamo to Montevideo and on to Havana. The news of the Guantanamo detainees' arrival to Uruguay received impressive coverage in international media . Uruguay is the second Latin American country to accept Guantanamo detainees ; the first one was El Salvador, which welcomed two Chinese nationals in 2012 . The fact that there have been only two countries in Latin America accepting Guantanamo inmates is already particularly extraordinary, given US historical ascendancy on the region . Even US' main allies in the region, Chile and Colombia, rejected US proposals to accept prisoners from Guantanamo, considering the move highly unpopular . Perhaps the spotlight fell on Uruguay as a Guantanamo detainee host because of Mujica's own media popularity over his unusually humble way of life as a world leader, and his progressive public speeches and political agenda . He also managed to get a lot of media attention over the arrival of around forty Syrian refugees in October , although they were few in number compared to the thousands of refugees that neighbouring countries such as Brazil and Argentina have been accepting . The day the detainees landed in Montevideo, Mujica sent an open letter to Uruguayans and Barack Obama . The first sentence reads,"Solidarity is the tenderness of the people", a quote from Pablo Neruda referring to the 1939 exodus of Spanish Republicans escaping fascism to South America . Neruda's words well reflect the main humanitarian goal of the operation , which aims to to reinforce the image of Uruguay as a peacemaker and international reference for humanitarian issues . "Pepe" has the aspiration, before ceding power to Tabare Vazquez at the beginning of 2015, to spread his humanitarian legacy and reinforce his world reputation . Through the well-publicised gesture, Mujica aims to give hope to all those disenchanted people who still think that idealism and ethics in politics are still possible . From a political perspective, Mujica's usual anti-imperialist stance left many in Uruguay astonished that he was willing to do a "favour" to Obama and accept the Guantanamo detainees . It is only in the second part of his open letter that his political goals become apparent . Mujica asks, as a gesture of reconciliation for all the American people, for the release of a 70 years-old Puerto Rican independence fighter, along with three Cuban detainees who are part of the group known as the Cuban Five , and whose controversial detention in the late 1990s led to a worldwide campaign for their release . He also asks for the lifting of the "unjust embargo" imposed on "our sister" Cuba . Mujica's plea is reflective of an emerging regional bloc different than the usual "left-leaning" one . It is instead a heterogeneous regional political bloc able to come to terms with ideological differences and to find common ground for regional coexistence in the name of progress . Best example of this is the ongoing peace talks between FARC and the Colombian government in Cuba, with the participation of Chile and Venezuela . Mujica's move, therefore, is not unprecedented . Back in 2009 the late Hugo Chavez hinted at the possibility of accepting Guantanamo detainees in Venezuela and at raising the issue of Cuba's isoluation . Cuba's reintegration into regional life, after decades of US ostracism, represents the main political goal of the bloc and of Mujica humanitarian operation . Therefore ,  it is not surprise that Jose Miguel Insulza, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) publicly lauded Mujica's move . Although leftist American governments have been particularly at odds with the Washington-based regional organisation, as consequence of the informal exclusion of Cuba under US pressure , Insulza has been working hard to reverse it . Just recently, he said that he hoped both Cuba and the US would attend the next OAS summit planned for April in Panama City . The US is unlikely to release the Cuban political prisoners , but Cuba's unilateral release of Alan Gross after 5 years could be part of a larger swap following Mujica's move . The six Guantanamo detainees will probably be the last ones to be resettled in the region . But their landing in Montevideo made it clear that Latin America is not, and will not be again the US backyard .

A: The news of the Guantanamo detainees' arrival to Uruguay received impressive coverage in international media their landing in Montevideo made it clear that Latin America is not, and will not be again the US backyard
****
Q: The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were smarter theologians than the jihadis. Rather disturbingly, one word seems to connect the activity of the Paris terrorists and that of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists: iconoclasm . I say disturbingly, because pointing out some common ground may be seen as blurring the crucial distinction between murderous bastards and innocent satirists . Nonetheless ,  it strikes me as fascinating that the cartoonists were profoundly iconoclastic in their constant ridiculing of religion (all religions, it must be noted) - yet it is precisely this same ancient tradition of iconoclasm that inspires Jews and Muslims to resist representational art and, in its most twisted pathological form, to attack the offices of a Paris magazine and slaughter those whose only weapon was the pen . So what's the connection? In one sense an iconoclast is someone who refuses the established view of things , who kicks out against cherished beliefs and institutions . Which sounds pretty much like Charlie Hebdo . But the word iconoclast also describes those religious people who refuse and smash representational images, especially of the divine . The second of the Ten Commandments prohibits graven images  - which is why there are no pictures of God in Judaism or Islam . And theologically speaking, the reason they are deeply suspicious of divine representation is because they fear that such representations of God might get confused for the real thing . The danger, they believe, is that we might end up overinvesting in a bad copy, something that looks a lot like what we might think of as god , but which, in reality, is just a human projection . So much better then to smash all representations of the divine . And yet this, of course, is exactly what Charlie Hebdo was doing . In the bluntest, rudest, most scatological and offensive of terms, Charlie Hebdo has been insisting that the images people worship are just human creations - bad and dangerous human creations . And in taking the piss out of such images, they actually exist in a tradition of religious iconoclasts going back as far as Abraham taking a hammer to his father's statues . Both are attacks on representations of the divine . Which is why the terrorists, as well as being murderers, are theologically mistaken in thinking Charlie Hebdo is the enemy . For if God is fundamentally unrepresentable, then any representation of God is necessarily less than God and thus deserves to be fully and fearlessly attacked . And what better way of doing this than through satire, like scribbling a little moustache on a grand statue of God . It's only some Christians that might demur from this logic . For the Christian story (ie Christmas) tells of God coming into the world as a human being . And in doing this the divine takes on a representational form . Jesus, says St Paul, is the image of the invisible God . Without this the whole western tradition of Catholic religious art and eastern tradition of icons is utterly inconceivable . So I can see how some Christians might find disrespectful images of God a la Charlie Hebdo insulting . After all ,  they believe it's possible for images genuinely to capture something of God . But if images can't capture God- and that's the Jewish/Islamic position- then bring on the cartoonists . They should be encouraged to do their worst and disrupt our confidence that what we think of as God bears any resemblance to anything legitimately God-like . They are like Moses bringing down the golden calf . It is the ancient job of the iconoclast . But ,  of course, these terrorists weren't really interested in theology . They thought that Charlie Hebdo's cartoonists were insulting their human tribe, a tribe they called fellow Muslims . And maybe they were . But whatever else was happening, it was the atheist cartoonists who were performing the religious function and the apparently believing Muslims who had forgotten their deepest religious insights . For any representation of the divine that leads people to murder each other deserves the maximum possible disrespect . @giles_fraser .

A:
whatever else was happening, it was the atheist cartoonists who were performing the religious function and the apparently believing Muslims who had forgotten their deepest religious insights
****