Welcome to a new week of System Update!

Last week, Glenn was in Russia. That was big. Now, he's handing over the show to independent journalist Lee Fang for the week, but before we let this one get ahead of us, we’re back with another Weekly Update to give you every link to all of Glenn’s best moments from Monday (February 24th) to Friday (February 28th). Let’s get to it.

Daily Updates

MONDAY: Michael Tracey at CPAC

In this episode, we discussed…

1. Whether Germany's AfD is truly a neo-Nazi movement;

2. Steve Bannon's views on the conflict in Ukraine;

3. Liz Truss on Boris Johnson's foreign meddling;

TUESDAY: Michael Tracey Debates the Ukraine War 

4. In this episode, Michael hosted a debate on the Ukraine War with independent journalist Tom Mutch;

WEDNESDAY: The View from Moscow with Professor Dugin

In this episode, we interviewed…

5. Professor Aleksandr Dugin on the Ukraine War, Russia's need for DOGE, authoritarianism, globalism, and Trump's relationship with Putin;

THURSDAY: No Show

FRIDAY: Glenn Reacts to Trump-Zelensky Standoff

6. In this episode, Glenn reacted to the explosive White House showdown.

About those question submissions: They’re LIVE!

We noticed that many of you didn’t submit recorded questions, possibly because the process was unclear. Regardless, we’re here to announce that our submission feature is now LIVE. Simply follow the Rumble Studio link included in our Tuesday and Thursday Locals after-show announcements to record your questions, share praise for our editors, or comment on current events.

Again, please be aware that shorter questions are easier to include in the after-show!

Locals benefits are being retooled. Here’s what that means:

For now, it means that our subscribers’ questions will be relegated to our new LIVE Friday mailbag, where Glenn will pull from the best questions, recorded and written, from the past week across all of our community-exclusive posts and discussions. Now, in other words, your questions will be seen by our entire Rumble audience. Rewards will be given for proper grammar and spelling. But there’s more!

In addition to our rescheduled question-and-answer segment(s), there will also be an increasing number of paywalled third segments, meaning that only you (our loyal Locals community members) will have access to the full range of System Update-related content. To be clear, this will happen slowly over the next month, so don’t be too alarmed. Be a little alarmed. Actually, a moderate level of alarm is appropriate—like 45% alarmed.

That’s it for this edition of the Weekly Update! 

We’ll see you next week…

“Stay tuned for a Weekly Update update!”

— System Update Crew

The following is an abridged transcript from Michael Tracey's debate with Tom Mutch on the Ukraine war, which aired as part of System Update #413. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

Michael Tracey Debates the Ukraine War with Tom Mutch

Michael Tracey: All right. Tom Mutch. So, you're a journalist. You have been covering Ukraine for quite some time rather intensively, I would say pretty intrepidly based on some of the reporting that you've done. So, I commend you on that. But for a while now, you and I have been going back and forth about wanting to have maybe something of a debate. I don't know that we have to call it a debate. Maybe just kind of…   

Tom Mutch: Discussion. A discussion.

Michael Tracey: Yes, exactly. There's no formal debate moderator here or anything. But just give us a little bit of background on why you wanted to have this discussion and explain to the viewers where you are right now. And then maybe just briefly sketch out what you see to be the couple of top pressing issues around Ukraine and U.S. policy in relation to Ukraine. 

Tom Mutch: Yeah, absolutely. So, I am originally from New Zealand. I grew up there and then I've spent most of my life based in the U.K. I have been in Ukraine kind of back and forth on and off since January 2022. So, just before the full-scale invasion started. I got there about a month beforehand. I was there when the Russians sort of kind of did that blitz toward Kiev. And I've sort of been hanging around and just going from place to place documenting everything that's been going on. I've been to a number of different frontlines. I spent most of my time in Kiev, but I've been to a number of frontlines. You can probably see by the flag: I do kind of wear my heart on my sleeve. And that's actually one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you.

One of the problems I've had is I feel too many people who spend a lot of time in Ukraine or support Ukraine took Ukraine a little bit too much for granted. I had this problem at first as well where I was like, okay, we just assume it is a moral cause and that anybody who doesn't see that is somehow dumb or deluded. And after having had a little bit of correspondence with you I was like that really isn't the right approach to take to this. 

I actually think people who are here needed to do a better job of explaining, one, what the issues in Ukraine are and why they're important for the rest of the world; two, I think we need to own up to the places where Ukrainian supporters have gotten out of hand or have told a lot of stuff that just isn't really accurate. Also, I think it's really important to bring the discussion because we are looking at an endgame now. I think a lot of people here and even in Russia expect that, within about the next six months, we're going to see something of a slowdown. 

So, I think it is actually time to start looking at some of the wider issues of the war. Some of the wider issues such as while I still blame Russia entirely for the conflict, could there have been something the people in the West and in Ukraine could have done to avert it? Could the conflict maybe have ended on slightly better terms or earlier on before all of the destruction in Ukraine happened? And so, that's kind of why I wanted to have that kind of conversation with you because I know we have probably different views on this topic but I have admired that you've constantly been consistent with your writing, you've been consistent with your principles and I thought this is, you know, as good of a discussion to have as anyone. 

One quest point, by the way, on the U.S. side of things, as not an American citizen, So, I can't say this is why I want my money spent on Ukraine because it's not my money if you know what I mean. So, I hope that gives you a bit of a... 

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.

System Update is an independent show free to all viewers and listeners, but that wouldn’t be possible without our loyal supporters. To keep the show free for everyone, please consider joining our Locals, where we host our members-only aftershow, publish exclusive articles, release these transcripts, and so much more!

Glenn is out this week, and Lee Fang will be your host for System Update. 

Last night, the film “No Other Land” won the Oscar for best documentary. The film, which stars Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian activist Basel Adra, chronicles the occupation and destruction of Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian village in the West Bank. 

The film has been described as a testimony to friendship, solidarity, and resistance. While much of the film documents Israeli attempts at land grabs and violence from Israeli military and settler forces from 2019 through 2023, it also juxtaposes snippets from old videos recorded by Adra's family and neighbors. “No Other Land” features footage of protests filmed by Basel Adra when he was just seven years old. As he sits with his mother in a field, his father is violently assaulted and then arrested by the Israeli army. 

Video: No Other Land - Official Trailer

At the Oscars, Yuval Abraham, the film's co-creator and also an investigative journalist for the Israeli media outlet, +972 Magazine, in his Oscar acceptance speech, called for Israel to end the destruction of Gaza, for Hamas to release the remaining hostages, and for the end of policies of “ethnic supremacy” in the West Bank, in which Israeli Jews like himself are treated differently than his Palestinian friend, Basel Adra, who lives under a different set of laws and norms simply on the basis of race and ethnicity. Because Basra is Palestinian, he cannot vote for the government that ultimately rules over him, or for the Israeli military that decides the fate of millions of other Palestinians in the West Bank. 

Video. Best Documentary Feature Film – Oscars 2025. March 2, 2025.

Now here's the rub: every other film awarded an Oscar last night had U.S. distribution. No Other Land, despite winning the most prestigious accolade in Hollywood, could not obtain a U.S. distributor. It is only shown in small and independent theaters. Hopefully this award changes that, but the situation reflects an ongoing form of systemic censorship in American media. 

Here's how The New York Times described the dynamic. 

“Despite a string of honors and rave reviews, no distributor would pick up this film in the United States, making it nearly impossible for American filmgoers to see it in theaters or to stream it. This shortcoming made “No Other Land” part of a broader trend in recent years in which topical documentaries have struggled to secure distribution.”

Now, this claim about quote, unquote “topical documentaries” struggling to obtain distribution obscures the reality. Let's take a look at the last decade or so of Oscar-winning documentaries.