Adam Conner
LightNews LightNews
adamconner.bsky.social
Adam Conner
@adamconner.bsky.social
1.6K followers 750 following 200 posts
Older but no wiser on a new social platform than the old ones. Professionally caring about the internet, doing tech policy at @americanprogress.bsky.social & @capaction.bsky.social but a poster first, always, and forever. Opinions are…you know the drill.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Adam Conner
thesleeperssleep.bsky.social
I'm sorry, but this may be the funniest Facebook AI slop I have ever seen. Bury me sideways in my coffin, brother. Let my dog see
Hulk Hogan, lying inexplicably sideways in his open coffin, being visited by a chihuahua dog, who looks distraught. The people behind the coffin do too
July 28, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
alondra.bsky.social
On Capitol Hill, I joined Sen. Bill Nelson @gretchentg.bsky.social @adamconner.bsky.social @cdelawalla.bsky.social to sound the alarm about the systematic dismantling of the US research infrastructure. The question isn't whether we can afford to invest in research. It's whether we can afford not to.
July 22, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
gregggonsalves.bsky.social
Get on the phone. It's appropriations season in Congress. #StoptheCuts #ProtectScienceandInnovation.
Alt Text: A graphic with a dark blue textured background features bold white text that reads: “The future of American science and innovation is at risk, but there’s still time to prevent more devastating cuts.” Below that, smaller white text says: “The Trump Administration slashed billions in federal research grants to universities, attacked scientific journals, restricted legal immigration for highly-skilled scientists, and proposed billions in budget cuts to the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, NASA, and more.” At the bottom, white text with a call to action reads: “Go to ProtectScienceAndInnovation.org and tell Congress to reject these funding cuts.” To the right is a stylized illustration of the torch from the Statue of Liberty with multicolored flames, overlaid by white atomic orbit lines.
July 21, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
chrislhayes.bsky.social
I didn’t start out thinking there was some genuinely incriminating info about Trump in the DOJ files on Epstein but I’m definitely changing my mind!
July 16, 2025 at 2:01 PM
adamconner.bsky.social
After a brutal few weeks of work, of course I stayed up late writing about the afternoon before a three day weekend release of the TikTok Letters and my obsession with the TikTok ban non-enforcement for my new Substack, "The Fun's in the Fight."
thefunsinthefight.substack.com/p/the-tiktok...
July 4, 2025 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Adam Conner
alanrozenshtein.com
The FOIA releases are available here. Congratulations to Tony Tan for his dogged pursuit of these documents! www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...
25-3980 (N.D. Cal.) Response 07.03.2025
www.documentcloud.org
July 3, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
REQUEST: If anyone still at DOJ knows anything about where these TikTok nonenforcement letters came from, who vetted them, if OLC had anything to say, or anything else of note, please reach out on a non-work phone and contact me on Signal: crg.32
chrisgeidner.bsky.social Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · Jul 3
NEW: In letters to companies with app stores, AG Pam Bondi purported to be "irrevocably relinquishing any claims" against them — Apple, plus Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and T-Mobile — for violating the TikTok ban. This is so, per Bondi, b/c Trump said it's OK, despite contrary language in the law.
July 4, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Reposted by Adam Conner
donmoyn.bsky.social
The idea that "I am genuinely outraged by Mamdani's college application, and therefore will shift my allegiances to Cuomo or Adams" is pretty funny
cascoinfoundation.org Cas Piancey @cascoinfoundation.org · Jul 4
Hahahahahahahaha
Jordan Lasker: Betting markets have not reacted to today's information pertaining to the New York City mayoral election.
July 4, 2025 at 1:43 AM
adamconner.bsky.social
Some people asked me why I, a guy who was indifferent about the TikTok ban, was so obsessed with it after Jan 19th. Because presidents can’t abdicate laws via EO and issue preemptive get out of jail cards.
www.americanprogress.org/article/publ...

techpolicy.press/apple-and-go...
July 4, 2025 at 1:43 AM
Reposted by Adam Conner
reckless.bsky.social
If I’m an Apple or Google shareholder I’m looking at this letter from Pam Bondi promising not to enforce the TikTok ban and saying this is nowhere close to good enough given the potential scope of damages. It’s basically a pinky swear based on nothing. www.theverge.com/tiktok/69798...
(b) 6) Appetire ent of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Dear Ms. Adams: Article Il of the United States Constitution vests in the President the responsibility ove ational security and the conduct of foreign policy. The President previously determined that a abrupt shutdown of the TikTok platform would interfere with the execution of the President's constitutional duties to take care of the national security and foreign affairs of the United States. See Executive Order 14166 (E.O. 14166). The Attorney General has concluded that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (the "Act") is properly read not to infringe upon such core Presidential national security and foreign affairs Executive Order 14166 instructed the Department of Justice not to take any action on behalf of the United States to enforce the Act for any conduct that occurred during the period of time from January 19, 2025 through April 5, 2025 (the "Covered Period"). Pursuant to the President's responsibility to protect national security and to conduct foreign policy, the President determined that a 75-day extension of the Covered Period to June 19, 2025 is appropriate and has signed a subsequent Executive Order to effectuate that determination (the "Extended Covered Period"). See Executive Order, Extending The TikTok Enforcement Delay (April 4, 2025). In the Executive Order signed on April 4, the President directed "the Attorney General to issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct that occurred during" the Extended Covered Period as well as for any conduct from the effective date of the Act. Based on the Attorney General's review of the Katherine Adams Senior Vice President & General Counsel Apple Inc. Page 2 facts and circumstances, Apple Inc. has committed no violation of the Act and Apple Inc. has incurred no liability under the Act during the Covered…
July 3, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
dbrody.bsky.social
Red alert for the big bill blocking state tech laws!

There’s a new draft of the AI moratorium and it’s WORSE. The exceptions narrowed so “generally applicable” laws only survive if they do not create an “undue OR disproportionate burden” on AI. This creates huge uncertainty for which laws survive.
www.blackburn.senate.gov
June 30, 2025 at 1:44 AM
adamconner.bsky.social
New from @nicole-alvarez.bsky.social and I, a new @americanprogress.bsky.social analysis of the Senate Commerce reconciliation bill’s rebranded “AI Pause,” & how contrary to the claim it’s optional for the new $500M in funding, the text implicates the entire $42.45B in BEAD broadband funding.
June 26, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
americanprogress.bsky.social
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law barring lifesaving medical care for transgender minors. In response, @calebllsmith.bsky.social, director of LGBTQI+ Policy at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement: www.americanprogress.org/press/statem...
STATEMENT: Supreme Court Ruled Against Bodily Autonomy in Skrmetti Case
www.americanprogress.org
June 18, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com
i'm developing a heuristic for interpreting republican governance
Flow chart: Does this own the libs > No Is it a handout for a rich sociopath? > No Does it reward an influential conspiracy theorist? No > Love of the game
June 17, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
iid.bsky.social
Workshopping a take about how National Treasure, a movie about a conspiracy theorist who proves all those sneering academics wrong and also uncovers the true, dark origins of the US, is a proto-QAnon movie
June 17, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
peark.es
They’re chaosmaxing.
June 16, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
kylec.bsky.social
NEW: MyPillowGuy Mike Lindell found liable for defamation for his statements about Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer. Federal jury orders Lindell to pay $2.3M, far less than the $62.7M requested by Coomer’s attorneys.
June 16, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
notalawyer.bsky.social
I wrote about Democrats' obsession with calling Trump's actions a "distraction," and how it reflects their failure to understand the modern media ecosystem.
The Politics of Eternal Distraction
To some Democrats, everything Trump does is designed to distract you
stringinamaze.net
June 16, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
bbkogan.bsky.social
Finance Committee text is out - this has the Medicaid cuts and the tax cuts. Will go through it in this thread.

But what we can say for certain is that, like the House version, this would be BY FAR the largest Medicaid cuts in history, kicking many millions of people off their health insurance.
June 16, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
calebllsmith.bsky.social
Today's Something Censored - The VA used to have a comprehensive resource page for providing medical care to LGBTQI+ veterans. The page included resources everything from serving trans and non-binary vets - to details on suicide prevention services. All have been wiped from the VA site.
June 16, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
maxkennerly.bsky.social
"Personalist" is key. Trump foreign policy doesn't have a coherent vision; "isolationist" springs to mind because he's dismantling alliances, but he's also imperialist, routinely threatening and meddling abroad on a whim. It's all less an ideology than a reactionary's emotional urge to cause damage.
June 16, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
pcfromnyc.bsky.social
"To everyone who pulls me aside to whisper with the best intentions 'You have already won', I am sorry, but the days of moral victories are over. And as my father told me years ago, 'When the Right wins power, the Left writes a great book.' Those days are over too."

-Zohran Mamdani
June 15, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Reposted by Adam Conner
fpwellman.bsky.social
This is a United States Senator mocking the assassination of a Minnesota legislator and her husband. He pretends to be a good Mormon. He’s a sick fuck.
June 15, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
astrokatie.com
Bizarrely, it appears that Trump’s nominee to lead the FAA has been lying about holding a commercial pilot license www.politico.com/news/2025/06... #aviation
Trump’s FAA pick has claimed 'commercial' pilot license he doesn’t have
Bryan Bedford, the nominee to head the Federal Aviation Administration, for years erroneously stated in his Republic Airways bio that he is a pilot with a “commercial” rating.
www.politico.com
June 15, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Adam Conner
atrupar.com
spoken like a diehard White Sox fan
In our competitive society, where it seems that only the strong and winners deserve to live, sport also teaches us how to lose. It forces us, in learning the art of losing, to confront our fragility, our limitations and our imperfections. It is through the experience of these limits that we open our hearts to hope. Athletes who never make mistakes, who never lose, do not exist.
June 15, 2025 at 6:13 PM