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: The Real State of Our Union: More entitlements, taxes and unemployment. In his State of the Union address, President Obama will propose much he knows the Republican-controlled Congress will not enact , but his real agenda is to set the table for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign . Once again, the president will propose soaking the rich with higher estate, capital gains and bank taxes, while adding to entitlements for the working poor and middle class--new tax credits, higher child care allowance and more college tuition assistance . It all sounds appealing in an economy where the top 10 percent have done quite well , while the rest struggle -- but it is not that simple . The president will argue the economy--and especially the rich-- can afford the taxes he wants because economic growth is so strong -- but that's a fib . Since the recovery began, GDP growth has averaged a mere 2.3 percent a year -- that's about half what Ronald Reagan accomplished climbing out of a recession of comparable depth . Now the recovery faces tough headwinds . Falling oil prices are curbing drilling in places like North Dakota and Texas , and big layoffs are not far behind . The dollar is quite strong against other currencies, limiting exports and boosting job-killing imports , because China's growth is faltering , Japan remains in neutral and Europe is on the edge of collapse under the weight of statism -- the very kind Obama and Clinton want to impose on Americans . The president proposes to legislate the basic contract between employers and workers . On top of higher minimum wages and mandated business financed health benefits, he wants employers to pay for mandatory sick leave and six weeks of paid parental leave . After five years, Reagan increased employment by 9.4 percent , whereas Obama has boosted jobs only 4.5 percent . Consequently , nearly one in six prime working age men between 25 and 54 is not working , and 72 percent of those are not even bothering to look . Obama has made Medicaid, food stamps and social security disability quite easy to get , and idle men form a new leisure class by combining those benefits with handouts from relatives and girlfriends . For employers, a higher minimum wage, compulsory health insurance, and sick and parental leave will make those men even more costly to hire . Enter stage left , more worker replacing robots . The number of young people--and especially young men--starting small businesses has fallen dramatically -- and that means fewer jobs over the next generation for everyone . Young folks start enterprises by raising a lot of capital from older rich people . Wealthy folks take the plunge on risky ventures , because the capital gains tax on successful enterprises is currently taxed at about 25 percent , whereas combined federal, state and local tax rates on ordinary income is often above 50 percent . Young entrepreneurs, who generally have not amassed much wealth, can't borrow nearly what they need from banks . Higher taxes on banks will make that problem worse . Hiking capital gains taxes will directly discourage older successful investors , who also bring a wealth of practical management experience and advice for getting young ventures off the ground . Older rich folks also take the plunge , because they can pass along assets at death to their children . But now the president wants to hike the tax rate on their estates , which is already 40 percent . The president calls it fair because it only falls on one percent of the population, and will paint Republicans who resist as defending the rich to the detriment of struggling Americans . His aim is to give Americans buyer's remorse about electing a Republican Congress and boost a Clinton campaign for the White House emphasizing similar themes . It would seem one out of six men unemployed, subsisting on government benefits and burdening relatives is not too high a price to elect another Democratic president .

SOLUTION: It would seem one out of six men unemployed, subsisting on government benefits and burdening relatives is not too high a price to elect another Democratic president Once again, the president will propose soaking the rich with higher estate, capital gains and bank taxes, while adding to entitlements for the working poor and middle class--new tax credits, higher child care allowance and more college tuition assistance

PROBLEM: CIA Report, Funding the Government: How can Obama, Congress defy the Constitution? When the government is waving at us with its right hand, so to speak, it is the government's left hand that we should be watching . Just as a magician draws your attention to what he wants you to see so you will not observe how his trick is performed , last week presented a textbook example of public disputes masking hidden deceptions . Here is what happened . Last week was dominated by two huge news stories . One was the revelation by the Senate Intelligence Committee of torture committed by CIA agents and contractors on 119 detainees in the post-9/11 era -- 26 of whom were tortured for months by mistake . In that revelation of anguish and error were the conclusions by CIA agents themselves that their torture had not produced helpful information . President Obama acknowledged that the CIA had tortured , yet he directed the Department of Justice not to prosecute those who tortured and those who authorized it . The other substantial news story was the compromise achieved by Congress and the White House to fund the government through the end of September 2015 . That legislation, which is 2,000 pages in length, was not read by anyone who voted for it . It spends a few hundred billion dollars more than the government will collect in tax revenue . The compromise was achieved through bribery ; members of Congress bought and sold votes by adding goodies (in the form of local expenditures of money borrowed by the federal government) to the bill that were never debated or independently voted upon and were added solely to achieve the votes needed for passage . This is how the federal government operates today . Both parties participate in it . They have turned the public treasury into a public trough . Hidden in the law that authorized the government to spend more than it will collect was a part about funding for the 16 federal civilian intelligence agencies . And hidden in that was a clause, inserted by the same Senate Intelligence Committee that revealed the CIA torture, authorizing the National Security Agency to gather and retain nonpublic data for five years and to share it with law enforcement and with foreign governments . "Nonpublic data" is the government's language referring to the content of the emails, text messages, telephone calls, bank statements, utility bills and credit card bills of nearly every innocent person in America -- including members of Congress, federal judges, public officials and law enforcement officials . I say "innocent" because the language of this legislation -- which purports to make lawful the NSA spying we now all know about-- makes clear that those who spy upon us needn't have any articulable suspicion or probable cause for spying . The need for articulable suspicion and probable cause has its origins in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution , which was written to prohibit what Congress just authorized . That amendment was a reaction to the brutish British practice of rummaging through the homes of American colonists, looking for anything that might be illegal . It is also a codification of our natural right to privacy . It requires that if the government wants nonpublic data from our persons, houses, papers or effects, it must first present evidence of probable cause to a judge and then ask the judge for a search warrant . Probable cause is a level of evidence that is sufficient to induce a judge into concluding that it is more likely than not that the place to be examined contains evidence of crimes . In order to seek probable cause, the government must first have an articulable suspicion about the person or place it has targeted . Were this not in the law, then nothing would stop the government from fishing expeditions in pursuit of anyone it wants to pursue . And fishing expeditions turn the presumption of liberty on its head . The presumption of liberty is based on the belief that our rights are natural to us and that we may exercise them without a permission slip from the government and without its surveillance . Until last week, that is . Last week, Congress, by authorizing the massive NSA spying to continue and by authorizing the spies to share what they have seized with law enforcement, basically permitted the fishing expeditions that the Fourth Amendment was written to prevent . How can the president and Congress defy the Constitution, you might ask? Hasn't every member of the government taken an oath to uphold the Constitution? Doesn't the Constitution create the presidency and the Congress? How can politicians purport to change it? The answers to these questions are obvious, as is the belief of most of those in government that they can write any law and regulate any behavior and ignore the Constitution they have sworn to uphold whenever they want , so long as they can get away with it .

SOLUTION: When the government is waving at us with its right hand, so to speak, it is the government's left hand that we should be watching

PROBLEM: It's the patriotism, stupid. What liberal critics don't get about "American Sniper". There' s no denying it . Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" has struck a chord with the American people, and did so by tapping into the deepest civic values we have as Americans - duty, honor, fidelity, courage, love for country...and a love for others . However , no war movie can live on the big screen without a spew of liberal backlash , and this film is no different . Criticism has come quickly from Michael Moore, Seth Rogen, former Vermont Gov  Howard Dean and other Hollywood leftists . Thankfully, some things speak louder than cowardly tweets -- like the more than $200 million in ticket sales the movie has raked in just one week . In fact ,  the new war film featuring Bradley Cooper as well-known Navy SEAL sniper, Chris Kyle, is on pace to become the top-grossing war film of all time . As much as the left would like you to believe it , Chris Kyle was not a bloodthirsty warmonger ; he was a noble warrior who fought to defend his fellow troops, watched over the lives of his brothers, and advanced the cause of (eventual) peace . This is where the true success of "American Sniper" comes to light . The film is not a movie about the Iraq war, or whether we won or lost; or even whether our motivations were justified . Instead ,  it's a story about a man and the many trials of war, including coming home from it . In the words of my good friend and former Army Ranger, Sean Parnell,"[American Sniper] isn't a pro-war film. It's a pro-warrior film." That's the key . The movie is a testament to the warrior - to the man in the arena . Everyone criticizing the film is on the sidelines hurling insults . Chris was in the arena, fighting for us in a dangerous and complicated war . Nonetheless ,  outspoken liberals will continue to cast judgment, saying that they support the warrior but not the war . But they contradict themselves even on that point . The left sees warriors--men like Chris Kyle--as bloodthirsty and ignorant Americans from fly-over country who cling to God and guns in blind support of our military . They dislike both the warandthe warrior . Nothing could be further from the truth . In reality, middle-America is full of hard working people of faith and fidelity who love their nation and believe in celebrating someone like Chris Kyle . These are people who feel like they're already taxed enough, that the government is over-bearing in their lives, that religion has been stripped from every aspect of civil society, and that the president is misguided in his gutting of their military . They are, in a word, patriots . Despite their frustrations with leftists, middle America is the beating heart of our nation and remains the first in line to selflessly strap on their boots and defend the very freedoms that people like Michael Moore use to criticize them . It's awfully easy for progressives to cast criticism down from their isolated ivory towers , but next time they consider demeaning the warriors protecting them afar, as Chris Kyle once did, they may want to consider who protects those towers and keeps them from tumbling . They're not only the folks who see this movie , but more often than not, they're the kind of people depicted in these movies . They're the kind of people who embody"citizenship," and the very idea of living and fighting for something bigger than oneself . Chris Kyle understood that . Today's servicemen and women understand that . And that's why millions of people are seeing this movie . They want to celebrate and believe in America again, if only for two short hours in a crowded dark theater .

SOLUTION:
Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" has struck a chord with the American people, and did so by tapping into the deepest civic values we have as Americans - duty, honor, fidelity, courage, love for country...and a love for others It's awfully easy for progressives to cast criticism down from their isolated ivory towers