TASK DEFINITION: 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.
PROBLEM: Welcome 2015: It may be two steps forward, one step back, but here's what matters. Today, January 1, 2015 is the very first day of a brand new year . And for many that means renewed efforts at a fresh start . New Year's resolutions, we call them . This is the year . It all starts now . We resolve to turn over a new leaf - and this time we're serious . This time we're really going to try , we're not going to quit . We promise ourselves that we're going to quit bad habits and start good ones . We're going to get in shape, eat better, be more content, more disciplined, more intentional . We're going to be better husbands, wives, fathers, mothers . We're going to work harder, serve more, plan more, give more, read more . We're going to finally be all that we can be . No more messing around . Well ... I say try . Seriously, try . You might make some great strides this year . I'm hoping to . There are a lot of improvements I'm hoping to make over the next 12 months . But don't be surprised a year from now when you realize that you've fallen short... again . For those who try and try, year after year, again and again, to get better and better, only to take three steps forward then two steps back, one step forward then three steps back... I have good news for you : you're in good company! Everybody I have ever talked to sounds just like me over the years . Try and fail . Fail then try . Try and succeed . Succeed then fail . Two steps forward. One step back. One step forward. Three steps back . Every year I get better at some things, worse at others . For example ,  this past year I've become more patient with my children -- more tolerant of their mishaps . Therefore ,  I've been enjoying them more and micromanaging them less (one step forward) . But ,  due to a lack of discipline on my part, I've also allowed myself to be stretched too thin this past year and as a result, those I love most have suffered (one step back) . Furthermore ,  no matter how hard I try--no matter how serious I am about resolving to change-- I still get frustrated by the same things that frustrated me 20 years ago: traffic jams, unexpected interruptions, long lines, feeling misunderstood, and so on and so forth . You get the idea . In some ways we get better . In some ways we get worse . And in other ways we basically stay the same . Whoever told us that the experience of life was one of escalating progress lied to us . Most of the time it feels rather static, doesn't it? New Year's Resolutions are a burdensome attempt to fix ourselves and make ourselves more lovable . But (and here's the good news), God loves us as we are, not as we should be . God's love for me, approval of me, and commitment to me does not ride on my resolve but on God's resolve for me . The good news that gets me through bad times is that God's devotion to me is not dependant on my devotion . Knowing that God always meets my messes with his mercy, my failures with his forgiveness, and my guilt with his grace, helps me survive my daily disappointments with me . The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news to those who've been crushed by unmet expectations of life -- it announces that because Jesus won for you, you're free to lose ; because Jesus was strong for you, you're free to be weak ; because Jesus was extraordinary, you're free to be ordinary ; because Jesus succeeded for you, you're free to fail . So , as this new year gets under way, I'll still going to try and get better at things , but it's so much more restful to know that I live my life from love rather than for it . Thank God! Happy New Year!

SOLUTION: For those who try and try, year after year, again and again, to get better and better, only to take three steps forward then two steps back, one step forward then three steps back... I have good news for you New Year's Resolutions are a burdensome attempt to fix ourselves and make ourselves more lovable

PROBLEM: From Ferguson to immigration: Obama's divide and conquer political strategy has failed our nation. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows support for illegal immigrants at 48 percent, a historic low . This is what the president's cynical manipulation of the Hispanic community has delivered: a hardening of American attitudes . The same distancing will likely occur between blacks and whites as the demonstrations over the grand jury decisions in Ferguson and Staten Island roll on . Whereas only recently a sizable majority of blacks and whites declared themselves comfortable with the state of race relations in the country , pictures of looting and the inflammatory rhetoric of self-interested activists like Al Sharpton will inevitably sharpen racial divides . The insistent proclamations from Attorney General Eric Holder that our justice system is biased, and the president's agreement that the law "feels like it's being applied in a discriminatory fashion," do not help . Today, Obama's well-honed political tactics of dividing and conquering-- so essential to electing a virtual nobody to the Oval Office-- have come asunder . The interest groups wooed by the president have begun to turn against him . Some feel betrayed ; others understand that their demands have isolated them from their fellow countrymen . The only group still giving the president more than a 50 percent approval rating is voters under 3 . For the rest of the poor boobs not caught up in the Obama splinter sweep-- they are eager to elect a successor who might look out for them . Turns out, those forgotten folks are actually in the majority, and just voted in a Republican Senate . According to the Quinnipiac poll, 48 percent of voters think immigrants living in the U.S  illegally should be allowed to stay . That's down from 57 percent last year, and lower than ever . Moreover ,  some 35 percent of the voting public thinks undocumented aliens should be deported -- a record high, and up from 26 percent last year . That's in spite of insistent hectoring from the White House about the moral imperative of providing a legal path for those who are here illegally . Congratulations, Mr  Obama, for ramping up opposition to immigration reform . How to deal with illegal immigrants is not the only issue on which the nation's attitudes are hardening . Last August, after the shooting of Michael Brown (but before the grand jury decision in the case), a New York Times/CBS poll surveyed voters on their attitudes about race . Asked whether race relations had improved or soured during President Obama's time in office, 35 percent of respondents said they had gotten worse , while 52 percent said they had stayed the same . Only 10 percent thought the president had had a positive impact on relations - 8 percent of whites and 17 percent of blacks . That is an impressive underachievement from our first African-American president . Overall ,  78 percent of respondents, when asked about "race relations in your community," said they were "generally good." That included 82 percent of whites and 73 percent of blacks -- a strong vote of confidence, especially from a group that was much less positive about the country as a whole, with only 47 percent saying U.S  race relations were "generally good." This split suggests that people have absorbed the narrative that our country has a race problem not from their personal experience in their own communities, but from the media or our political leaders . The most compelling aspect of that story line entails racial bias in law enforcement . Many initiatives, from decriminalizing marijuana possession to de-emphasizing tactics like "stop and frisk," have been promulgated based on the fact that more blacks than whites end up on the wrong side of the law . Holder has even dumbed down school discipline measures, arguing they constitute an example of racial bias . The Manhattan Institute's Steve Malanga sheds some welcome light on this issue . According to surveys conducted by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics over the past 20 years, the number of confrontations between Americans and the police has declined, as has the use of force by law enforcement officials . Most important, perhaps, is that the declines were recorded not just for whites, but for all races . In 2002, 173,000 African-Americans reported a "use of force"; in 2011, that was down to 130,000 . Nearly 83 percent of blacks who were involved in traffic stops(the most numerous encounters) agreed with the statement,"When I was stopped by the police, the officers acted properly." That figure was up from 78 percent in 2002 . As for so-called "street stops," the Bureau reports,"In 2011, less than 1% of the 241.4 million U.S  residents age 16 or older were involved in a street stop" ; further ,  "no differences were observed in the percentage of non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic populations age 16 or older involved in a street stop." So much for unfair profiling . Under 3 percent of police encounters involve "street stops" of an involuntary nature ; of those stopped (likely not a happy crew), two-thirds said the cops behaved "properly and respectfully." This review does not suggest a law enforcement community reviled by the African-American community, or the country . President Obama has tried to curry favor with blacks, Hispanics, women, the young and the poor by convincing them that they suffer from injustices, that they are victimized by the one percent, by law enforcement, by corporations or insurers -- or by Republicans . Americans aren't buying it . Increasingly, they see a country victimized by an incompetent president .

SOLUTION: Today, Obama's well-honed political tactics of dividing and conquering-- so essential to electing a virtual nobody to the Oval Office-- have come asunder This is what the president's cynical manipulation of the Hispanic community has delivered: a hardening of American attitudes

PROBLEM: Muslims in the news only when they're behind the gun. Ahmed Merabat was the first of the 12 innocents killed in Wednesday's targeted attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo . The 42-year-old French Muslim policeman was executed on the sidewalk of Paris' 11th borough - the enclave where Charlie Hebdo's headquarters is located . Merabat was shot, point-blank, by one of the three assassins, minutes before they broke into Charlie Hebdo's offices, and slaughtered the magazine's top editor and celebrated cartoonists . The coverage of the "Paris shootings" centred almost exclusively on Stephane Charbonnier, Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut and Bernard Verlhac - the prominent and unyieldingly provocative minds behind Charlie Hebdo . The first victim, Ahmed Merabat, was purged from the headlines . The political and representational ramifications that come with highlighting Merabat's victimhood cannot be ignored . First ,  it complicates the broader narrative that rigidly caricatures Muslims as terrorists, outsiders and marginals . And second, refutes the state-sponsored indictment of Muslims in France as perpetrators of subversion, instead of law-abiding citizens . Muslim and French . Apart from the obvious tragedy, the Charlie Hebdo killings manifest the baseline that Muslim identity is only relevant - and indeed newsworthy - when the subject is standing behind the gun. Not in front of it . In most everywhere in the world, but especially France - the architect of modern Islamophobia . Muslims comprise a considerable percentage of the French polity . Islam is the nation's second biggest religion , and figures place the Muslim population at 5 percent to 10 percent of France's 66 million citizens . Islam's size, and demographical rise, has spurred some of the most draconian policies against Muslims in modern times . The headscarf ban in 2004, followed by illegalisation of the niqab, or face covering, in 2010, codified core Islamophobic ideas . This legislation also functioned as a firm and fervent declaration by the state that Muslim and French identities were at odds and irreconcilable . The French laicite model provided the structural underpinnings to carry forward Islamophobic legislation . But more nefariously, guise it under the banner of state-sponsored secularism . Expectedly, the religious expression bans disparately impacted French Muslims . In addition ,  they chilled bodily and verbal expressions of Muslim identity . The state aim of compelling secularisation upon its Muslim citizenry was based upon the civilisational binary, and ultimatum, to choose between "Islam and the West", "Muslim lands or France" . Despite this ultimatum handed down from the state, the overwhelming majority of French Muslims exercised their faith amid pervasive bigotry . And simultaneously, embraced their national identities as Frenchmen and women . Extreme voices from within the state, and French civil society, looked to the three terrorists as representatives of the nation's 3 to 6 million Frenchmen and women . Collateral indictment of French Muslims, by politicians and media alike, infused with an already fervent culture of Islamophobia on the ground, will surely incite violent backlash against Muslims and Muslim communities in the country . Although unimaginable before Wednesday, French Islamophobia stands to become far more severe and strident . The conflation of the terrorist's acts with France's Muslim population, from the perspective of hatemongers, holds the latter vicariously liable . This connection, that links three deviant actors with an entire faith and millions of disconnected citizens, will fuel rabid backlash against Muslims in France, and more than likely, claim additional victims . Centring Muslim victims, instead of villains, would mitigate the backlash considerably . In addition , focusing on the heroics of Merabat, instead of the evil of the three terrorists, asserts - and inserts - a competing narrative that France's Muslims are everyday citizens : Citizens with jobs, families, and interpretations of Islam that condemn violence, and contradict the malignant caricature of the faith constructed by the state . Ahmed Merabat was more than a victim . He was far more than merely a Muslim . He, in both life and especially in death, stands as an archetype for the overwhelming majority of French Muslims . A law-abiding citizen, Merabat harmonised his religious identity with the responsibilities of being a Frenchman . He was both French and Muslim , an existential integration eviscerated by the longstanding Islamophobic discourse in France, and ignored by the media firestorm following the attack . Although the first victim of the attack, Ahmed Merabat's story was shot down from the news headlines . And his name and face absent from the ongoing stream of reports and narratives emanating from Paris on Wednesday . Inserting him into the story, and countering the barrage of vile Muslim representations with a rebuttal of victimhood and valour, will likely save lives in France . Most importantly, retelling the story from the perspective of Ahmed Merabat will not only reveal that Muslim and French identity are reconcilable, but also resilient .

SOLUTION:
The 42-year-old French Muslim policeman was executed on the sidewalk of Paris' 11th borough - the enclave where Charlie Hebdo's headquarters is located