instruction:
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.
question:
Obama hands Cuba's Castros a major victory, but Congress can still stop it. Establishing ties with Cuba has been on President Obama's bucket list for some time . Health care -- done . Amnesty for illegal immigrants  -- done . Cuba -- next . This last one also has the added bonus point that it puts him right with the international left , which lionizes Castro . And the president will go on picking off the next items on the bucket list for the next two years of his term unless Congress decides to stop him . Should they work up the gumption , lawmakers will find they can do many things to stand up for the prerogatives of the legislative branch . Obviously, the release of the 65-year-old American hostage Alan Gross should be welcome . His "crime" was to bring computers to Jews on the island . For the last five years, he has been a victim of Cuba's state terrorism , just as 11 million Cubans have been held hostage by their government for the past five decades . Exchanging three hardened Cuban spies for Gross, however ,  establishes an insulting moral and legal equivalency . The spies actions led to the death of an American in the 1990s , and they were duly convicted . Their release in exchange for Gross creates an incentive for rogue regimes and individual actors to kidnap Americans all over the world . Not only does President Obama's action fail to advance freedom in Cuba , it throws a lifeline to Cuba's dictators , whose current supplier of funds, Venezuela, is on the ropes because of plunging oil prices . It surrenders to the demands for normalization that the Castros have been making for decades . So what can Congress do? Right off the bat, Congress must make it crystal clear to President Obama that he lacks the authority to lift the embargo on Cuba, allow trade to take place between the two nations, let tourists to go to Cuba to bail out the regime or give Cuba have access to capital markets . U.S  law--the Helms-Burton Act of 1996--gives the Congress power to override any action taken by the executive to lift the embargo . In order to lift the embargo, the Cuban government would have to give the Cuban people a number of rights--of association, speech, political activity, etc  -- that President Obama obviously failed to secure in his 45-minute conversation with Cuban dictator Raul Castro Tuesday . Congress can also make clear to the president that there are statutory criteria that must be met before his administration can take Cuba off the State Department list of terrorism sponsors . The president must inform Congress that there has been a change of leadership and policies of the Cuban government and that Castro has given assurances that it will no longer support terrorist acts . Can President Obama do any of that? Senators should also make clear that they will put a hold on any ambassador that Mr  Obama nominates to serve in Cuba unless he can guarantee that the Cuban government is no longer a threat to the United States and has decided to grant freedom to people in Cuba . Sen  Marco Rubio, R-Fla , has already said he plans to do that . Additionally ,  Congress can look into the possibility of using policy riders in the upcoming DHS appropriations debate in February and the Fiscal Year 2016 appropriations process to deny the president funds for setting up relations . Congress must act because President Obama has been completely feckless in his entire approach to Cuba . He received nothing in exchange for many substantial concessions made to the Communist regime . After five years of "negotiations" President Obama ended exactly where Raul Castro's demands began five years ago . As Senator Marco Rubio said, President "Obama is the worst negotiator since Carter." Mr  Obama's statement was filled with Havana's communist talking points, such as affirming that Cubans are poor and unfree because of the embargo, or that Cuba was a U.S  colony . None of that is true , and yet Mr  Obama said it . Congress must act to limit the damage inherent in this Havana Giveaway . Left unchecked , Obama will simply move on to the next misguided item on his bucket list .
answer:
Establishing ties with Cuba has been on President Obama's bucket list for some time


question:
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 .
answer:
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


question:
Obama hands Cuba's Castros a major victory, but Congress can still stop it. Establishing ties with Cuba has been on President Obama's bucket list for some time . Health care -- done . Amnesty for illegal immigrants  -- done . Cuba -- next . This last one also has the added bonus point that it puts him right with the international left , which lionizes Castro . And the president will go on picking off the next items on the bucket list for the next two years of his term unless Congress decides to stop him . Should they work up the gumption , lawmakers will find they can do many things to stand up for the prerogatives of the legislative branch . Obviously, the release of the 65-year-old American hostage Alan Gross should be welcome . His "crime" was to bring computers to Jews on the island . For the last five years, he has been a victim of Cuba's state terrorism , just as 11 million Cubans have been held hostage by their government for the past five decades . Exchanging three hardened Cuban spies for Gross, however ,  establishes an insulting moral and legal equivalency . The spies actions led to the death of an American in the 1990s , and they were duly convicted . Their release in exchange for Gross creates an incentive for rogue regimes and individual actors to kidnap Americans all over the world . Not only does President Obama's action fail to advance freedom in Cuba , it throws a lifeline to Cuba's dictators , whose current supplier of funds, Venezuela, is on the ropes because of plunging oil prices . It surrenders to the demands for normalization that the Castros have been making for decades . So what can Congress do? Right off the bat, Congress must make it crystal clear to President Obama that he lacks the authority to lift the embargo on Cuba, allow trade to take place between the two nations, let tourists to go to Cuba to bail out the regime or give Cuba have access to capital markets . U.S  law--the Helms-Burton Act of 1996--gives the Congress power to override any action taken by the executive to lift the embargo . In order to lift the embargo, the Cuban government would have to give the Cuban people a number of rights--of association, speech, political activity, etc  -- that President Obama obviously failed to secure in his 45-minute conversation with Cuban dictator Raul Castro Tuesday . Congress can also make clear to the president that there are statutory criteria that must be met before his administration can take Cuba off the State Department list of terrorism sponsors . The president must inform Congress that there has been a change of leadership and policies of the Cuban government and that Castro has given assurances that it will no longer support terrorist acts . Can President Obama do any of that? Senators should also make clear that they will put a hold on any ambassador that Mr  Obama nominates to serve in Cuba unless he can guarantee that the Cuban government is no longer a threat to the United States and has decided to grant freedom to people in Cuba . Sen  Marco Rubio, R-Fla , has already said he plans to do that . Additionally ,  Congress can look into the possibility of using policy riders in the upcoming DHS appropriations debate in February and the Fiscal Year 2016 appropriations process to deny the president funds for setting up relations . Congress must act because President Obama has been completely feckless in his entire approach to Cuba . He received nothing in exchange for many substantial concessions made to the Communist regime . After five years of "negotiations" President Obama ended exactly where Raul Castro's demands began five years ago . As Senator Marco Rubio said, President "Obama is the worst negotiator since Carter." Mr  Obama's statement was filled with Havana's communist talking points, such as affirming that Cubans are poor and unfree because of the embargo, or that Cuba was a U.S  colony . None of that is true , and yet Mr  Obama said it . Congress must act to limit the damage inherent in this Havana Giveaway . Left unchecked , Obama will simply move on to the next misguided item on his bucket list .
answer:

Establishing ties with Cuba has been on President Obama's bucket list for some time