Mara Gay
@maragay.bsky.social
American. Journalist. New York Times Opinion writer and MS Now political analyst.
really important conversation @maragay.bsky.social is on it
London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 2d ago‘The federal government is used and wielded against the black vote, against Southern voters, against democracy in the South and elsewhere. That is an innovation that is a creature of this time, and it is devastating.’ @maragay.bsky.social on the podcast. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
Are Republicans going to let the Heritage Foundation destroy Head Start? www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/u...
Trump Administration Plans to Upend Head Start by Deregulating It (Gift Article)
The White House tried but failed to block funding for preschool for poor children. Instead, it will seek to strip away standards on health, literacy — and brushing teeth.
nytimes.com
Yes and Steve Banks, who also resigned and went on lead NYC's law department. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/b...
Top Pro Bono Leader Resigns from Paul Weiss, a Firm Hit in Trump’s Crackdown on Big Law (Published 2025)
Steven Banks, who once ran New York’s social services department, said he wanted to return to helping the homeless. He leaves within weeks of the elite firm striking a deal with President Trump.
nytimes.com
One point of contrast is Damian Williams - the first Black American to serve as attorney for the Southern District of New York - who quit Paul Weiss last year after the firm struck a deal with Trump.
Mara Gay@maragay.bsky.social · 3d agoA story of late-capitalism and cowardice www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/u...
A story of late-capitalism and cowardice www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/u...
How a Top Law Firm Went From Standing Up to Trump to Bending the Knee (Gift Article)
Paul Weiss was a progressive stalwart for decades and led the legal resistance against President Trump in his first term. Then it surrendered without a fight. This is the inside story of its transform...
nytimes.com
just a devastating dispatch from @nysfocus.com about the acceleration of kids having to argue for asylum alone, without an attorney, and then most of them getting deported nysfocus.com/2026/07/31/t...
NY Lawyers Fear Trump Blitz Will Speed Up Child Deportations
The Trump administration is accelerating asylum proceedings as legal aid funding expires, leaving immigrant children less time to prepare.
nysfocus.com
Goodbye and thank you to Betye Saar, a giant and a favorite www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/a...
Betye Saar, Artist Who Upended Black Stereotypes, Dies at 99 (Gift Article)
Working with dolls, family photographs, fabric scraps and other found objects, she became a leading figure in assemblage art.
nytimes.com
Mamdani Calls Netanyahu a ‘War Criminal’ and Calls on U.S. to Arrest Him www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/n...
Mamdani Calls Netanyahu a ‘War Criminal’ and Calls on U.S. to Arrest Him
Mayor Zohran Mamdani challenged the United States to execute an international arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, which New York itself cannot do.
nytimes.com
Americans are using oatmeal to stretch their food and dreaming about robbing grocery stores while Republicans use government to make their rich friends richer. There are many words for this. Like plunder. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/u...
Faced With Piles of New Paperwork, People Are Losing Food Stamps (Gift Article)
Arizona’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program rolls have plummeted, offering a possible preview of national trends as states try to avoid new federal penalties.
nytimes.com
Rev. Ed King, one of the last surviving founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and a longtime ally of Black Mississippians throughout the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, died on Saturday, July 4, at age 89.
Vicksburg Native Rev. Ed King: Lifetime Civil-Rights Ally for Black Mississippians
Rev. Ed King, a longtime ally of Black Mississippians throughout the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, died earlier this month at age 89.
buff.ly
The administration is keeping immigrant kids separated from parents for months and months, often only releasing them after courts intervene. www.ctinsider.com/news/article...
5-year-old spent 118 days on her own in federal immigration custody in CT
On any given day there are more than two dozen immigrant children detained without a parent or guardian in programs run by Connecticut nonprofits.
ctinsider.com
This is one of the more honest conversations I’ve seen on cable news in a while. Mara Gay explains why many voters are angry that their tax dollars are funding the war in Gaza while Americans struggle here at home. She argues it’s about what our government chooses to prioritize. 1/2
We are interviewing voters in battleground counties on camera, to understand what they want to see from politicians and from democracy itself. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/15/o...
Opinion | ‘It’s Chaos’: What New York’s Suburbs Can Tell Us About the Mood of the Country (Gift Article)
The midterms are looming. We asked people in New York City’s suburbs how they feel about the state of America.
nytimes.com
The cautious centrists and center-left politicians who have dominated the Democratic Party for so long have failed. Voters see this, which is why the uprising within the Democratic Party is unlikely to be contained. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/o...
Opinion | The Democratic Establishment Is Finally Getting the Reckoning It Deserves (Gift Article)
The Democratic Party needs shaking up.
nytimes.com
“The British did not take it well,” Mayor Mamdani says in his Independence Day speech, maybe the most millennial language ever used to describe the American Revolution youtu.be/XcxRUkGAM-w
Mayor Mamdani Delivers Address Marking America’s 250th Birthday
YouTube video by NYC Mayor's Office
youtu.be
my essay this week was, icymi, on the people who wielded the declaration as a weapon against bondage (gift link)
Opinion | Five Words That Changed America
nytimes.com
Basically the Supreme Court is 5-4 on whether America is white man's country
The Supreme Court is one vote away from undoing the 14th Amendment.
Ned Resnikoff@resnikoff.bsky.social · last mo.The Birthright citizenship ruling should be a wake up call to any Dem who is still on the fence about court reform. We are essentially one seat change away from the Court undoing Reconstruction by fiat.
thomas simply couldn't join the opinion, this corrupt, misanthropic bigot had to throw in his two cents and put his bigotry into the record
Jay Willis@jaywillis.net · last mo.Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion in the trans sports ban case in West Virginia contains some of the ugliest transphobic stuff I have ever seen in a legal opinion. Straight-up gleeful. Vile man. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
![2 WEST VIRGINIA v. B. P. J.
THOMAS, J., concurring
judgment). Because “gender dysphoria” is a mutable men-
tal state that is the object of psychiatric treatment, it does
not resemble the immutable characteristics on the basis of
which our precedents have applied heightened scrutiny—
race, sex, or national origin. Instead, gender dysphoria re-
sembles other characteristics on the basis of which legisla-
tures may classify with a merely rational basis. See, e.g.,
Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. 312, 321 (1993) (mental illness);
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U. S. 202, 220 (1982) (immigration sta-
tus). Legislatures have many obvious rational bases to
keep men who believe that they are women out of teams
and private spaces reserved for women.
Second, as the Court recognizes, this case concerns “bio-
logical men” and “boys who identify as girls.” Ante, at 10,
27. Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or
girls, even if they believe that they are. Sex is an immuta-
ble “biological” characteristic, see ante, at 10; it is binary;
and “man” and “woman,” “boy” and “girl,” are the terms that
correspond to adults and children of each sex. See A. Byrne,
Are Women Adult Human Females? 177 Philosophical
Studies 3783, 3786–3787 (2020). To use language to ob-
scure reality—to show “indifference regarding the truth”—
is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens
“as equal[s].” J. Pieper, Abuse of Language—Abuse of
Power 17, 21 (1992).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bpna2qi2e44fafbhhtqjak3x/bafkreibwsxtosqddkiskx5oxonnai4ha7ygixfcqmnbsxb27z3q43jh4iu)
👋🏽👋🏽👋🏽 Black woman journo here who has covered multiple Grand Slams, including an ESPN Magazine cover story on Naomi Osaka and many pieces on the Williams sisters: I am available for commissions on Serena and Wimbledon! I was there for her final US Open match. I ask great questions!
After federal agents shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a New Yorker sent ICE's director an email in January comparing him to a Nazi. This week, DHS agents stalked him across New York. His home. A hotel. They gave his wife a letter warning of criminal prosecution. www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06...
