McMahon’s mission to help kids, AI is erasing hearing loss and other commentary

Schools beat: McMahon’s Mission To Help Kids

“Education Secretary Linda McMahon is doing exactly what President Donald J. Trump hired her to do: Clean out a failed education bureaucracy, return power to states and parents, and put students” first, applauds Jorge Martinez at RealClearPolitics. Yet Sen. Elizabeth Warren is “attacking her” — “defending Washington’s control at all costs.” Bad move: “America has spent more per student than any major developed nation,” yet test scores keep falling. “Entire generations of students have cycled through a system in which the federal government grows larger, costs rise, and academic performance declines.” Warren’s “panic” suggests “someone is finally challenging the system” that politicians like her “rely on for power.” But if “we care about our children’s futures,” we should defend McMahon’s mission, “not tear it down for political points.”

Health watch: AI Is Erasing Hearing Loss

“Thanks to artificial intelligence, the subjective experience of people with profound hearing loss is increasingly indistinguishable from those with normal hearing,” cheers Richard Vigilante at The Free Press. “The Mayo Clinic surgeon I spoke with before my operation” (cochlear implants) “had a little screen about the size of an iPhone hanging from his neck that transcribed his speech into text accurately and immediately.” “Thanks to artificial intelligence, the live captions from Google Meet, Zoom, or FaceTime” are equally good. Plus, tools like Xander eyeglasses can carry a speech-to-text “transcription in the lenses so you can maintain eye contact and catch every spoken word.” “In a world in which speech to text is immediate, nearly flawless, and increasingly universal, my hearing, after degenerating for 30 years, gets better every day.”

Media watch: Sing Along With Democrats

“The world was ending four weeks ago,” cracks The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Hennessey, or so Democrats and the media were singing “from the shutdown hymnal” — “Democrats call the tune and the media plays it.” Their new song: “Pete Hegseth Will Be Tried at the Hague.” “Seemingly out of nowhere” Dems warned service members “not to follow what they called ‘unlawful orders.’” And, “serendipity be blessed,” The Washington Post then ran a laughably-sourced story “all but accusing Mr. Hegseth of issuing illegal orders to kill helpless, probably surrendering drug runners hanging off the sides of burning boats.” Yet President Trump “is immune to the narrative-shaping power” of the “Democratic-media” narrative, and his supporters aren’t “dummies,” either.

Tech beat: Freedom Wins The AI Race

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang predicts China will “win the AI race,” unless the United States “wins developers worldwide.” But Huang’s “lament” raises “a deeper question,” explains Derek Levine at The Hill: “What kind of system ultimately breeds innovation — one built on control, or one built on freedom?” “Modern Chinese industrial policy” is aims to “absorb, replicate, indigenize,” but Bejing’s system stifles “innovation” and “curiosity.” In America, the ability “to defy authority is democracy’s creative engine.” The AI race “is about which system can nurture human imagination and foster innovation.” And while “speed matters” in winning this race, “freedom remains the true engine of genius.”

Conservative: Why Dems Are Losing Latinos

“Hispanics are no longer a reliable Democratic constituency” as evidenced by Donald Trump winning 48% “of the Hispanic vote, just three points shy of Kamala Harris’s share,” hails Daniel Di Martino at City Journal. “Even more striking, he carried 51 percent of foreign-born, naturalized Hispanic immigrants.” It’s further proof that “Hispanics are assimilating into America’s mainstream” and, in a sense, “becoming white, in both culture and identification.” This oft-repeated “story of American integration” happened with Italians who “were considered racially suspect” before disappearing “into the white majority.” Notably, rising “English proficiency is another measure of Hispanic assimilation.” And good news for all: “Hispanics’ cultural assimilation means that in the future, ethnic identity will matter less — and America will be more united.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board