One of the things that 2026 holds in store is what some are already calling "the trial of the century."

A guided tour of Ai Tsuno's 9th album, which consists of 12 songs David Rovics created with Ai Tsuno over the course of December, 2025. Topics covered include the ongoing Gaza genocide, the trial of Luigi Mangione, the corporate internet, and the beauty of Bonoboville. The Red and the Blue drops on the music streaming platforms of January 9th, 2026.

If you're feeling hopeless, most likely the first thing you should do is leave all your devices in a hole somewhere and go outside. This will be one of the tracks on my next album with Ai Tsuno, The Red and the Blue, which, if all goes as planned, will drop on all the music streaming platforms on January 9th.

The modern internet, controlled as it is by the world's biggest corporations and their conflict-promotion algorithms, has become a nightmare of monolithic proportions. This will be one of the tracks on my next album with Ai Tsuno, The Red and the Blue, which, if all goes as planned, will drop on all the music streaming platforms on January 9th.

There's really no such thing as red or blue -- just lots of folks like me and you.

My biggest hope for 2026? That by the end of it we'll be experiencing a more or less normal winter in the northern hemisphere, and not a nuclear one. This will be one of the tracks on my next album with Ai Tsuno, which, if all goes as planned, will drop on all the music streaming platforms on January 9th.

What makes a piece of music good? What makes a song a good song? The music industry has, for a century or so, been obsessively oriented with creating mysterious and exciting identities for artists they want to turn into stars. The industry emphasizes the artist, rather than the art. The art itself, along with the producers, lyricists, session musicians, engineers, and promoters, are all those kinds of things happening "behind the curtain" that, like the Wizard in Oz, are meant to be ignored. But if you extract all the PR and music business hoopla, what makes a song a good song? Is it actually about the artist recording or performing it, or is it about the music itself? If it's the artist that makes the song, then what about the artist? Does the artist need to have lived a virtuous life in order to make likeable art? Does the artist need to be from a certain part of the world, and not another? Does the artist need to be human? My take on these questions is in the end, other factors may play into how a song is perceived in a big way, but what really matters is the song itself. If it's delivered well by a competent performer live or recorded, and the listener is in a good place for really listening, then a sad song will make the listener cry. A song about memories of your youth will evoke such memories. A satirical song about current events the listener is following in the news will likely make the listener laugh. These reactions of the listener are the measure of the song's impact. That's what this song is about. I invite you to close your eyes and give a song your full attention. You might try doing that every day, and call it meditation.

I sat down this morning with the intention of writing a bit of a travelogue about my recent travels in Texas and Georgia, but then I wrote this song instead. I'll probably eventually write the travelogue, too.

British members of Palestine Action on hunger strike are close to death, Israel's "ceasefire" is just a continuation of the famine, disease and slaughter Israel continues to deliver to the Palestinian people, and across the west, leaders express their deference to the genocidal killers, ship more weapons, and ban words and phrases that make fascists uncomfortable. The hunger strike continuesIn the British prisonsAs the courts refuseTo reach a decisionWill they judge this timeAs they have beforeThat the crime is sending Weapons to the war Because the terrorists hereAre the ZionistsWho’d try to hideA genocide It's a holocaust And it's happening nowA hundred thousand lives lostAnd no one knows howHow many moreWill ever be found Under the rubble Beneath the ground  Chorus The Palestinian peopleBeneath plastic sheetsThere's no ceasefire, just a famine As history repeatsHistory from the NazisBrought down on the holy landBeside the bloody seaWith an F-thirty-five at hand  Chorus As the Israelis go onWith their endless killing spree While Egypt plays the pawnWith their new refineryAnd throughout the west They ban phrases and wordsAs our leaders do their bestAt being completely absurd Chorus

Members of Palestine Action are being held without bail or trial in England for trying to stop a British-sponsored genocide.  Many are on hunger strike, and the doctors say they are dying, as their organs are beginning to fail due to some of them now going on 6 weeks without eating.  Meanwhile in Australia, they are talking about passing a law to say that the phrase, "globalize the intifada" is hate speech.  Resisting genocide is apparently a very hateful thing to do.  Terroristic, even.

In the aftermath of an event like Bondi Beach, media can play the role of building bridges and finding mutual understanding, or it can play the role of being the propaganda arm for a genocidal regime.

David Rovics is an activist musician who composes songs that educate about historical events, provide political analysis about current events, and raise up people from social movements. His solidarity with Palestinian liberation is deep, spanning his entire musical career. Recently, his entire 50-album catalog on YouTube Music was deleted. Clearing the FOG speaks with Rovics about the retaliation he has faced, some of his recent songs, how platforms like Spotify and YouTube are impacting the music industry, his artificial intelligence band, Ai Tsuno, and calls to boycott Spotify. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.

Steve Zeltzer and I talked for over an hour about all sorts of interesting things the other day.

On the daily news and information show broadcast out of KPFA in Berkeley, California, every Friday host Dennis Bernstein is joined for the first half of Flashpoints by Sam Husseini to talk about the latest in Israel's genocide. Today journalist Robert Inlakesh and I joined Dennis and Sam to talk about our respective experiences getting blacklisted by YouTube, or in Robert's case, by Google altogether.

The latest David Rovics musical production, Ai Tsuno's eighth album, drops on all the streaming platforms later this month. In this podcast special, Ai Tsuno herself presents a guided tour of Rage Bait, and introduces you to songs such as Pogroms of the Occupied West Bank, Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, Let's Talk About Sex, They Deleted David Rovics, and the title track.

I had a conversation with Scott Harris on Counterpoint Radio earlier this week. The first half is about news of all my albums being deleted from YouTube Music, and the second half is about the double-edged sword of AI and AI music.

The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a weekly radio show on WPFW in Washington, DC, as well as a podcast. Most of the hour consists of Chris Garlock and I diving deep into the weeds of AI music generation and the future of humanity. It was a great interview to begin with, but then the way the songs were edited in for the final version makes it even better.

The latest chapter in the ongoing saga of David's journey down the corporate Memory Hole.

The Oxford English Dictionary announced yesterday that their word or phrase of the year for 2025 is "rage bait." Here's a song about it from Ai Tsuno.

It's a sunny forecast for the rest of the weekend in Portland, Oregon. Our weekly neighborhood vigil for Gaza is happening Sunday at noon, and I wrote a jingle for it.