6.10 Down 27 at the half, the Knicks come back and defeat the Spurs 107-106, on an OG Anunoby tip-in with two seconds left. The Knicks take a 3-1 lead in the series. Chris Mannix in SI: “Pick your New York moment. The 1986 World Series, when the Mets stayed alive when the ball trickled through Bill Buckner’s legs. The 2008 Super Bowl, when David Tyree made a game-saving catch with his helmet. This equals those. Probably better. It was over. And then it wasn’t. It was the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history.”
6.8 Megan McArdle in the Washington Post: “The nation is in a hole, and if it’s going to climb out, Americans need to take a hard look at the bill that is rapidly coming due, rather than stuff the notices in a drawer and try to forget they’re there. The debt held by the public is roughly $31.6 trillion, and it recently surpassed 100 percent of the gross domestic product. In other words, if we wanted to pay it off next year, we’d have to stop consuming anything and turn everything we produce, from apples to zippers, over to our creditors. Sure hope you remembered to stock up the chest freezer, or it’s going to be a very hungry year. Thankfully, we do not actually have to pay off the debt next year. In fact, we don’t have to pay it off at all. A nation with a healthy economy can sustain a modicum of debt, and even modest budget deficits, essentially forever. As long as the debt isn’t too high, the deficits aren’t too outrageous, and the economy keeps growing, inflation and economic growth will keep the national debt-to-GDP ratio within healthy bounds. Alas, the United States is well past that point. The outsize debt was barely sustainable even with the abnormally low interest rates between the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic. But with 30-year Treasury yields at their highest level in almost two decades, it is not. Interest costs alone exceeded 3 percent of GDP in 2025, more than the government spent on Medicaid or defense. That has helped push the annual budget deficit to almost $2 trillion, or 5.8 percent of GDP. Unless something is done, those numbers will get even worse as the boomers finish retiring and entitlements eat more and more revenue. There is only one way this kind of profligacy can end: in a fiscal crisis that forces Congress and the president to hike taxes and cut spending, very probably at the worst possible time, when the economy is already nose-diving for some other reason. And here’s the thing: Everyone knows this. There’s a reason you yawn when you’re asked to think about the national debt — it’s because you’ve heard this all a zillion times before. This slow-moving disaster has been on the horizon for decades. We’ve all decided not to think about it until we make landfall on whatever hellscape we’re approaching.”
6.8 Julia Ward Howe’s letter to James T. Fields, editor of The Atlantic, pitching the poem that would be entitled The Battle Hymn of the Republic: “Fields! Do you want this, and do you like it, and have you any room for it in January number? I am sad and spleeny, and begin to have fears that I may not be, after all, the greatest woman alive. Isn’t this a melancholy view of things? But it is a vale, you know. When will the world come to end?” The letter was written sometime in 1861; the poem was published in February 1862 issue. Howe was paid either $4 or $5.
6.7 Trump has a tantrum on Meet the Press. The Guardian: “When [host Kristin] Welker asked the president for any evidence on the gubernatorial race being fraudulent, he also accused the veteran reporter of being “crooked”. “They’re crooked, just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And Meet the Press is crooked,” said Trump. Welker then defended herself and tried to ask additional questions, with Trump replying: “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.” Trump then brought up previously repeated false claims that he won the 2020 US presidential election. When Welker later tried to ask additional questions, Trump continued to assert that NBC was “crooked” and ended the interview. “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough,” said Trump, taking off his microphone. “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.”’ Tom Nichols: “Emotionally unstable man goes on paranoid, babbling rant. Somewhere in that suit, he has a small card with the codes to 1500 strategic nuclear weapons.” Mary Trump: “Donald had a temper tantrum on national television and walked out of an interview simply because Kristen Welker presented him with a basic fact. Note to other journalists: now is the time to pile on. He won’t be able to handle it.”
6.5 According to Lawfare, at least 97 of the nearly 1,600 people who were charged in connection with the Capitol riot have been accused of new crimes since Jan. 6, 2021. This includes 19 cases that happened after Mr. Trump granted clemency to Jan. 6 defendants on the first day of his second term.
6.4 Tetsuo, a teacher in The Fire Agent, by David Baerwald: “How may I serve with honor if my masters have none?” 6.4 The office of President Emmanuel Macron of France announces that Marjane Satrapi has died at 56.
6.2 Pressure 6.2 CBS fires Scott Pelley 6.1 Scott Pelley, to Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of 60 Minutes, about CBS editor in chief Bari Weiss: “She is murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that. She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the Evening News have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”
6.1 On the strength of Ginny‘s crossword skills and her knowledge of noble gases, Team 52 wins the Anthony’s Pizza trivia game. 6.1 After Iran threatened to quit negotiations with the U.S. over Israel’s actions in Lebanon, Trump called Netanyahu: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this. What the fuck are you doing?”