Brendan Salisbury

Honestly would love to buy you a drink while you're in town (or some good cannolis) and thank you for your continued work.

Owning old guns is great until you need to repair an old gun. Turns out when you don't clean a gun for 75 years it gets a little gunked up. Pins and screws get stuck, and the blow torch and penetrating oil need to come out. And there's swearing. A lot of swearing. Very worth it, but such a pain.

I heard about the Mamdani-Trump meeting and I was not expecting that level of starstruck from Trump. I was expecting the almost coherent, vaguely positive, noncommittal rambling we usually get when he finds someone shiny and new floating through his vanishing attention span. Mamdani got the cha.

I got a lot to say about this and most of it would get me in trouble, so I'll just say this: do what these goons clearly didn't. Take a firearms safety course. Then get licensed and get yourself a firearm, because you never know who's out there pretending to be law enforcement.

Remember Mark Robinson, republican NC gubernatorial candidate? Yeah I think about him a lot, and the dissonance involved in demanding disarmament in the face of that rhetoric and the refusal to repudiate it.

Anyway, feels like as good a time as any to remind that these evil fucks don't care about kids, they just hate queer people and want to kill us. So. Act accordingly. Maybe check out your local Pink Pistols if you want to protect yourself, or if you're not queer but serious about your allyship.

People are on the sex offender registry for life for taking a piss in public because our society has largely done away with public restrooms, but gods forbid Larry Summers face real consequences for using his immense social power to manipulate, bully, and coerce women into sleeping with him.

To be clear, I am aware that some powerful people have called for resignations and firings etc. but we all know those things aren't going to stick to people like Larry for long. And those same people stop short at that. They don't call a duck a duck. They don't call for criminal charges.

If I had my way we'd apply the only known guaranteed cure for pedophilia to everyone associated with Jeff Epstein but somehow people think that suggestion is worse than the rampant pedophilia and sex-pestery. Somehow I'm the bad guy. Kinda makes me a little concerned about our priorities.

Maybe we've failed as a society if nobody in power is willing to publicly excoriate a sex pest who was best friends with one of history's most infamous and prolific pedophiles. Yes, I know that absent context it's not immediately clear who I mean. That's kinda the problem.

Unsurprising for the NYT but what a weasely way to avoid taking an actual stand by firing the guy or acknowledging your ties to him. "Oh yeah, he was just a contractor. Honestly we probably weren't gonna renew with him anyway. Good luck Larry! Thanks for all your hard work!"

An excuse to re-up this while I'm on vacation? Don't mind if I do! #Massachusetts #renters, I wrote an article about suing my #Boston landlord and your rights to your security deposit in MA. Go give it a read and share it around. Educate yourself and your friends.

And #mapoli (again) cause why not

This is exactly the level of miserable I would like every CBP/ICE agent to be. Depressed and alone, knowing how utterly reviled you are by everyone around you. You are not good people. Your cause is not righteous. Those who command you do not care about you. Suffer.

Oh, huh, yeah it could. Wild, that.

They've got all the time in the world to do a bill that generates mass confusion and the arrest of law abiding citizens, doubles up on felony charges for things that were already illegal, and drives gun owners away from mental health services, but can't be arsed to actually do anything good. #mapoli

The climate crisis is going to exacerbate violence as it destroys people's property and livelihoods, causes intense heatwaves and food shortages, and worsens our energy crisis. The MA legislature is actively facilitating the spread of violence in MA while promoting carceral solutions. #mapoli

Look I don't *want* to leep beating this drum, but the MA legislature produced a garbage "gun control" bill that fundamentally does next to nothing to make anyone safer and, separately, are continuing to refuse to make anything about living in MA better for residents. #mapoli

There is a group of people who have so much money that they simply are not playing the same game as the rest of us. They operate by different rules. Unless we bring them back onto our playing field or lock them out of their side game we are never building our way out of the housing crisis.

Except for the ones who don't, like Zillow. It is a well documented phenomenon that some investors purchase and hold to drive up the values of the property they hold. There are a lot of vacant properties out there. I'm not saying "we've built enough", but "build more" by itself isn't the solution.

This only works if the supply isn't subsequently bought up by "investors" generating artificial scarcity. "Build build build" is not a silver bullet, it's a small component of the solution. Without regulation to keep costs from being inflated by this behavior, no amount of supply will be enough.

If you like what I had to say about this, stick around. I'm going to be doing more writing this year, and actually doing some of that planned #mapoli regulatory board meeting oversight. It's gonna be a wild ride.

I realize I posted this at a bad time to get eyes on it, so have a bump. #Massachusetts #renters, I wrote an article about suing my #Boston landlord and your rights to your security deposit in MA. Go give it a read and share it around. Educate yourself and your friends.

And #mapoli cause why not.

Anyhow, read it, share it, get educated. Know your rights. Sue your landlords. Fight back.

Relevant statute link here: malegislature.gov/Laws/General...

Something I neglected to include in the article, I'm just realizing, is that a landlord retaliating against you for exercising your rights is illegal under ch. 186 s. 18. Attempting to evict you or increase your rent within 6 months after you take action is a penalty between 1 and 3 month's rent.

It is really critically important that tenants have a better understanding of what our rights are, when landlords are, at best, often flying by the seat of their pants. At worst, they're intentionally stealing from their tenants, people who don't realize that they can fight back.

It's a longer read, but if you've ever wondered what your rights are as a tenants with relation to your security deposit, or been afraid of the process to sue to get it back, this was my experience over the last several months. It's easier than you think, and not as scary as you fear.

I Sued My Landlord. Maybe You Should Too. In July of 2024, my roommate and I let our landlord know that we intended to renew our lease for another year. Obligingly, they sent over a…

Alright folks, it has been a long time since I wrote anything long-form, but I got some news today that I've been waiting on and I had to share. So #massachusetts #renters... I sued my #boston landlord (and won), and maybe you should to. medium.com/@brendan.sal...

Look, if people didn't want me to share my opinions, at length, maybe they shouldn't have created a space for that to happen.

Is a 12 minute read too long for an article? Asking for a friend who hasn't written anything for other people to read that isn't a law or a one-pager in...several years.