Newly released surveillance video from outside Jeffrey Epstein’s New York prison cell the night of his suicide now shows the so-called “missing minute.” It contradicts Attorney General Pam Bondi’s explanation. She had misinformation. The surveillance clip was among the more than 33,000 pages of documents and videos tied to Epstein’s sex-trafficking probe that were released […] The post The Missing Minute on a New Video Shows Up appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Thank God we fought a revolution in this country so that we are not ruled by the idiotic rules of the modern United Kingdom. Graham Linehan is a comedian and comedy writer who was just arrested in the UK — for his tweets. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in the UK. In mid-August, the New York Post titled an article, “UK free speech crackdown sees up to 30 people a day arrested for petty offenses such as retweets and cartoons.” The Post wrote: Bernadette Spofforth lay in jail on a blue gym mattress in a daze, finding it difficult to move, even breathe. “I just closed down. But the other half of my brain went into Jack Reacher mode,” she said, referring to the fictional action hero. “Every single detail was in this very vivid, bright, sharp focus.” She remembers noticing that you can’t drown yourself in the toilet, because there’s no standing water in it and the flush button is too far to reach if your head were in the bowl. She’d end up being detained for 36 hours in July 2024. Three girls had just been murdered in Southport, England, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party. But Spofforth was not under suspicion for the crime. Instead, horrified, and in the fog of a developing tragedy, she’d reposted on X another user’s content blaming newly arrived migrants for the ghastly crime — clarifying in her retweet, “If this is true.” Hours later she realized she may have received bad information and deleted the post — but it had already been seen thousands of times. … Her story is one repeated almost hourly in the UK, where data suggests over 30 people a day are arrested for speech crimes, about 12,000 a year, under laws written well before the age of social media that make crimes of sending “grossly offensive” messages or sharing content of an “indecent, obscene or menacing character.” Four police vehicles arrived at her home days later. Linehan wrote on Substack: The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two—five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets. In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up.) The tweet read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the ba**s.” Linehan was arrested for that tweet. He was also arrested for another tweet in which there was a gigantic trans protest in London, of which he tweeted a photo, captioned, “A photo you can smell,” followed by a tweet in which he wrote, “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.” “At Heathrow police station, my belt, bag, and devices were confiscated,” he wrote. “Then I was shown into a small green-tiled cell with a bunk, a silver toilet in the corner and a message from Crimestoppers on the ceiling next to a concave mirror that was presumably there to make you reflect on your life choices. … At one point, I said ‘I bet I know who made this complaint. Lindsay Watson’ (demented ex-copper troon who was fired for his online conduct). Then, lo-and-behold, one of my lawyers sent me this reply to the ‘bollocks’ tweet.” The reply stated, “That weird ex-copper claims he has reported this to police and is trying to get other troons to do so. Just FYI.” Welcome to England, the birthplace of the Magna Carta, where they are tearing down the institutions that make a functional society. WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show It’s not just that these folks in the UK are interested in tearing away free speech and saying you’re not allowed to tweet a bad thing, that bad tweets might land you in jail: They are importing people from parts of the planet who hate and despise all of the centralizing Western principles, such as free speech. I write in “Lions And Scavengers” about the coalition of scavengers, about the idea that you have barbarians — the people from outside who hate our civilization — who join forces with the lechers inside our civilization who believe that they are marginalized by our traditional institutions and values, and then they make common cause together.  That’s the UK in a nutshell. It is no coincidence that on Tuesday, the Home Secretary of the UK, Yvette Cooper, said that the UK is going to take in refugees from Gaza. She stated: I confirm that the Home Office has put in place systems to issue expedited visas with biometric checks conducted prior to arrival for children and their immediate accompanying family members. We have done the same for all the Chevening scholars and are now in the process of doing so for the next group of students from Gaza who have been awarded fully funded scholarships and places at UK universities so that they can start their studies in autumn this year. Later this year, we will set out plans to establish a permanent framework for refugee students to come and study in the UK so that we can help more talented young people fleeing war and persecution to find a better future, alongside capped and managed ways for refugees to work here in the UK. Congrats to the people of Great Britain. They don’t just have to contend with the insanity inside their borders, but out of some sort of misplaced sympathy, they are going to be importing people who almost certainly do not share their values. There are plenty of other countries on planet Earth that are more akin ideologically and culturally to the people of Gaza, but according to the wonderful folks in the UK, those countries don’t exist. There’s been some opposition within Westminster to taking in refugees from Gaza. Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick expressed apprehension at the idea of resettling Palestinians in the UK. He wrote in The Telegraph, “The truth is that Gaza’s Arab neighbors are prepared to offer humanitarian support, but consider the idea of inviting Gazans into the country at any scale a risk only a fool would take.” Which, of course, is true. This is a misapplied sense of guilt directed at the Third World by the Labor Party in the UK, a belief that in the oppressor/oppressed matrix, the UK is an oppressor; Israel is an oppressor; the people of Gaza are the oppressed, and therefore the people of the UK must accept people who believe that Western civilization is in and of itself wrong and terrible. As a side note, we should point out at this point here that Qatar — which is essentially Hamas with nicer suits — owns much of London. “A cursory look at Property Week shows that the Qatari Investment Authority, Qatari Holding and Qatari Diar own 23,253,699 square feet of London, making Qatar the largest owner of London property. Reports vary about the sum invested, alleged to be £35 billion. Qatar’s square footage is more than HM The Queen’s Crown Estate,” Sunday Guardian Live reported. If you ever wonder why Europe is so warm toward importing people who truly hate their civilization, a big part of the reason is this — money.

BOSTON (Reuters) — A federal judge on Wednesday ruled U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration unlawfully terminated about $2.2 billion in grants awarded to Harvard University and can no longer cut off research funding to the prestigious Ivy League school. The decision by U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, in Boston marked a major legal victory for Harvard as it seeks to cut a deal that could bring an end to the White House’s multi-front conflict with the nation’s oldest and richest university. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school became a central focus of the administration’s broad campaign to leverage federal funding to force change at U.S. universities, which Trump says are gripped by antisemitic and “radical Left” ideologies. Burroughs, however, said that the Trump administration used allegations of antisemitism on campuses as “a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” Three other Ivy League schools stuck deals with the administration, including Columbia University, which in July agreed to pay $220 million to restore federal research money that had been nixed because of allegations the university allowed antisemitism to fester on campus. As with Columbia, the Trump administration took actions against Harvard related to the anti-Israel protests that roiled its campus and other universities in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Trump during an August 26 Cabinet meeting demanded Harvard pay “nothing less than $500 million” as part of a settlement. “They’ve been very bad,” he told Education Secretary Linda McMahon. “Don’t negotiate.” Among the earliest actions the administration took against Harvard was the cancellation of hundreds of grants awarded to researchers on the grounds that the school failed to do enough to address harassment of Jewish students on its campus. The Trump administration has since sought to bar international students from attending the school; threatened Harvard’s accreditation status; and opened the door to cutting off more funds by finding it violated federal civil rights law. Harvard has said it has taken steps to ensure its campus is welcoming to Jewish and Israeli students, who it acknowledges experienced “vicious and reprehensible” treatment following the onset of Israel’s war in Gaza. But Harvard President Alan Garber has said the administration’s demands went far beyond addressing antisemitism and unlawfully sought to regulate the “intellectual conditions” on its campus by controlling who it hires and who it teaches. Those demands, which came in an April 11 letter from an administration task force, included calls for the private university to restructure its governance, alter its hiring and admissions practices to ensure an ideological balance of viewpoints and end certain academic programs. After Harvard rejected those demands, it accused the Trump administration of retaliating against it in violation of First Amendment free speech protections by abruptly cutting funding the school says is vital to supporting scientific and medical research. Burroughs in a separate case has already barred the administration from halting its ability to host international students, who comprise about a quarter of Harvard’s student body. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Amy Stevens and Lincoln Feast)

You have to imagine there are more than a few panicked conversations going on this evening over at the headquarters of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that routinely traffics drugs into this country and takes over apartment complexes in places like Colorado. ?? ON VIDEO: U.S. Military Forces conducted a strike against Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists. The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the U.S. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. pic.twitter.com/iszHE0ttxQ — The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 2, 2025 Credit: @WhiteHouse/X As you may have seen, seven months after the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization, the U.S. military just blew up one of the gang’s drug boats as it sped towards the United States. There was no warning. The Coast Guard didn’t try to take them into custody. Instead, the boat — and all 11 people onboard — were bombed and eliminated, presumably with the help of one of the warships that the White House has recently deployed to the southern Caribbean. After decades of having open access to the United States, this development had to be quite a shock for Tren de Aragua, and every terrorist group that engages in drug trafficking. Until now, the absolute worst-case scenario is that they might get detained, very briefly, and maybe have to answer a question or two about why they’re heading towards the United States on a boat with four outboard motors and millions of dollars’ worth of narcotics. And then some NGO, armed with tax dollars commandeered by the Democrat Party, would jump into action and spring them loose, as Ivy League academics demanded that we respect the “civil liberties” of sociopathic foreign drug traffickers.  But that’s not what happened this time. Instead, the NGOs and academics weren’t given any time to intercede on behalf of Tren de Aragua. Federal judges weren’t given that opportunity either. There’s simply no chance that a federal judge (with a name out of a “Star Wars” movie) can issue any kind of injunction at this point, ordering the Trump administration to form a dive team, and piece all of these dead bodies back together. It just won’t work. We just simply killed them all instead.  And as you might expect, our moral superiors aren’t happy about any of this. Here’s how one Princeton professor and self-styled “human rights” advocate, a guy named Kenneth Roth, responded to the destruction of the drug boat: Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war. Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed, which U.S. forces just illegally did. There were dozens more posts like this, all of them complaining about the destruction of a boat full of drug traffickers. The Trump administration didn’t respond to any of these people. Instead, one by one, the official accounts of various officials and departments in the administration — including Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, the Rapid Response team — posted the footage of the boat exploding, without apology. The White House also posted memes like this one: TERRORISTS ELIMINATED. ADIÓS. ? pic.twitter.com/92buoGEB4E — The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 2, 2025 Credit: @WhiteHouse/X The caption reads, “TERRORISTS ELIMINATED. ADIÓS.” It’s not exactly a subtle message. But what makes it so effective is that, predictably, no one on the Left has any idea how to respond.  Their default tactic — which is to stall, file frivolous lawsuits, and wage large-scale propaganda campaigns — simply doesn’t work anymore. So instead of accomplishing anything, they’re stammering on the internet about how it’s supposedly a terrible thing that drug boats are being destroyed. They’re aghast at the possibility that, for the first time in recent memory, the U.S. military is actually carrying out airstrikes for the benefit of the American people. And the American people overwhelmingly support it. As scandalous as this may be to left wing, anti-human academics, most Americans feel the way I do about it. And my take is very simple: kill the foreign drug traffickers who bring poison into our country. Kill them all. Mass slaughter of the drug cartels. Leave no one alive. That’s what I want to see. It’s what most Americans want to see. And it is in fact the moral and just course of action. The White House recognizes the abject weakness that Democrats are displaying at the moment. That’s why, the other day, the president announced that the U.S. military would continue to take action to protect the homeland. The city of Chicago is up next. Watch: NOW – Trump says “we’re going in” to Chicago. pic.twitter.com/hqoXNxrEPl — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 2, 2025 Credit: @disclosetv/X There’s nothing unprecedented about using the National Guard to establish order when local authorities prove unable or unwilling to do so. Take the shooting at Kent State in 1970 during riots over the Vietnam War, for example. Four college students were killed and nine were wounded by the National Guard. In many schools today, this episode is taught as “the Kent State Massacre.” Teenager Mary Ann Vecchio kneels over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller (1950 – 1970) who had been shot during an anti-war demonstration on the university campus, Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970. Photo by Howard Ruffner/Getty Images. Pretty much every university in the country claims that this shooting was a clear example of brutality by the U.S. military. But at the time, the public overwhelmingly supported the National Guard. People understood that these “students” had been rioting and threatening people with deadly weapons for days. They had burned down a building on campus. They were unruly, and a clear threat to public safety. They had cornered the National Guard troops, and were advancing on them. That’s what actually happened.  In fact, as recently as two decades ago, Chicago’s leaders were openly talking about bringing in the National Guard on their own. Here’s a report from the Associated Press in 2008: [Illinois Governor] Blagojevich surprised [Mayor] Daley on July 16 by offering to send state police or even the National Guard to battle ‘out of control’ crime in Chicago. So there’s nothing crazy or unprecedented about what the Trump administration is proposing now. Democrats realize that, presumably. So in response, rather than construct any kind of rational argument, they’re resorting to panicked nonsequiturs. Here’s one alderman in the city of Chicago for example: Chicago Alderman is asked what more can be done about the 50+ people shot over Labor Day weekend in his city. His answer? Trump is a dictator and is normalizing violence. pic.twitter.com/8NggG2wMuf — Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) September 2, 2025 Credit: @WesternLensman/X Yes, his very first response, when asked about the extraordinary levels of crime and violence in his hometown, is to talk about the murder of two children in a Catholic church by a trans-identifying mass shooter — in another state. This is a trans-identifying mass shooter whose demonic ideology was “affirmed” at the highest levels of the Democrat Party. That’s the defense he’s offering. “Oh, you’re worried about the constant shootings in Chicago? Well, that’s absurd, because our party is also responsible for mass shootings in other states, too!” If you noticed, CNN introduced this guy in the chyron as a “Chicago Alderman for Ward with Large Hispanic Population.” So apparently, we’re supposed to treat him as a credible talking head on this particular issue, even though he uses every single DNC buzzword imaginable. He calls homeless people “unhoused folks.” He says Trump is a “dictator.” He talks about “concentration camps.” And then he demands a “systemic investment,” meaning more tax money. You just know that guy goes around saying “LatinX,” on top of all this. It’s a complete trainwreck. But this is all they have. Meanwhile, residents of Chicago are being terrorized by repeat offenders who obviously belong in prison. Watch: BREAKING: White woman hospitalized by a repeat offender in Chicago with MULTIPLE arrests due to vioIence: 2017: Beat women and police 2022: Punched multiple women 2023: Attacked a random woman 2024: Assaulted a 15-year-old girl pic.twitter.com/i0zcLTbVun — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 3, 2025 Credit: @EndWokeness/X Any sane person watching reports like this would realize that Chicago has a major problem. It’s not enforcing the law, or punishing criminals. So maybe they should start with that. Instead, Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, has decided to deflect blame, in probably the most pathetic and unconvincing way possible. Yesterday he announced that “red states” are responsible for gun crime in Chicago. Watch: JUST IN: Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson says gun violence in Chicago is actually because of red states. Johnson claimed that the gun violence in his city was Trump’s fault, as he talked about guns as if they were sentient beings. “The vast majority of guns do not come from… pic.twitter.com/C2m4sSmjuc — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 2, 2025 Credit: @CollinRugg/X Yes, “the shootings will continue,” says Brandon Johnson. He doesn’t seem to realize what he just said. He couldn’t have made it any more clear that he views the violence in Chicago as a core building block of his political power. He might as well have announced that “the shootings will continue until morale improves.”  Think about the logic here: Yes, there are constant shootings in Chicago, Brandon Johnson concedes. But they’ll continue to take place, if Donald Trump gets involved. So, I guess we’re looking at, what, a wash? Is that the idea? Johnson’s underlying argument is, of course, absurd and he’s changing his position here. Just a year ago, when he was asked why Chicago is so dangerous and dysfunctional, Johnson blamed Richard Nixon. Watch: Over 100 people were shot in Chicago last weekend, including 18 fatally. Mayor Brandon Johnson blamed it on Richard Nixon in his press conference today. No, that is not a joke. pic.twitter.com/dorETLl5os — Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 8, 2024 Credit: @greg_price11/X So we’ve gone from Richard Nixon being responsible for the fact that Chicago is falling apart, to the idea that “guns from red states” are responsible. That’s quite a switch-up. But let’s give Brandon Johnson the benefit of the doubt, and look into the numbers here. First of all, if you pull up the data from the ATF’s website, here’s what you’ll find. Credit: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. This is from 2022. It shows where firearms that were recovered in Illinois were originally purchased, assuming that the ATF could make that determination. As you can see, Illinois is the top source, by far. Roughly 7,500 firearms that were recovered in the state of Illinois were originally purchased there. The next-highest states are Indiana and Missouri, which were responsible for 2,500 and 1,000 firearms, respectively. If you add up all of the other states in the top 15, you’ll find that, in more than 50% of cases, the firearm was originally purchased in Illinois. This is not a surprising or significant finding in any way. And it certainly doesn’t implicate “red states,” so much as it implicates “blue cities.” Both Indiana and Missouri, as we all know, are home to many loyal Democrat Party voters. Some of those Democrat Party voters will move across state lines. And the problem isn’t the fact that these people are capable of traveling. It’s the fact that they’re committing violent crimes. There’s a reason why, if you look up the top 10 most violence cities in America, 9 out of the 10 are led by Democrats. That’s 90%. Trying to pin this on Republicans is a form of gaslighting that could only be done by the same people who tried to convince us that men can get pregnant. They are very accustomed to denying basic reality. Also, here’s a question, Brandon. Let’s take just the guns that do come into Chicago from red states. Let’s even pretend that they’re coming from red areas of red states — meaning, the rural areas, not the cities. Well, Brandon, why do those guns only become a problem once they make it into Chicago? Why do they suddenly start killing people in Chicago, when they weren’t killing people in rural Indiana? Do the guns just take on a life of their own? Do they come to life like some rated R version of Toy Story? Or do the actual humans in Chicago decide to use those guns to commit violent crimes, which would mean the problem is with the people in your city, not the objects. I have multiple guns. I’ve never murderer anyone in my life. Somehow even with my guns I have never experienced the temptation to spray bullets into a church. It turns out that if you aren’t a mentally ill freak, having a gun isn’t a problem at all. https://t.co/dhoz3SjsWy — Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 28, 2025 Credit: @MattWalshBlog/X This is a concept that leftists struggle with. But if you work with them, you can get them to understand it. In fact I just had this experience with Stephen King. After the mass shooting by the trans guy at the Catholic Church, I pointed out that trans identified people are mentally unwell, and doctors should be legally barred from “affirming” their confusion. Stephen King responded by posting this: “Trans is not the problem. He had a gun. That’s the problem.” I replied: “I have multiple guns. I’ve never murderer anyone in my life. Somehow even with my guns I have never experienced the temptation to spray bullets into a church. It turns out that if you aren’t a mentally ill freak, having a gun isn’t a problem at all.” And then Stephen King, in a moment of accidental mental clarity, said: “Yes, but you’re sane.”  Well, yes, Stephen. That’s right. So you see that it’s not the gun, it’s the person. It seems we’ve had a breakthrough. If only we could do the same with these Democrat politicians. But instead they all play the same game that Brandon Johnson plays. Gavin Newsom has been doing it. JB Pritzker has also joined in. Watch: JB Pritzker: “The president… doesn’t seem to understand it’s actually Republican states that have the crime problem. Of the 20 states that have the biggest crime problem, 13 of them are red states controlled by Republican governors.”pic.twitter.com/5VgzFPrn8F — Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) August 29, 2025 Credit: @ThomasSowell (Thomas Sowell Quotes)/X Again, there’s the conflation of “red states” with “blue cities inside red states.” What’s left unspoken here is that, in red states, there are cities, controlled by Democrats, where extraordinary levels of crime and violence take place. And many of these cities have majority-black populations, or close to it. That’s the very inconvenient fact that you’re not supposed to talk about. But the truth is, you simply can’t explain this disparity in crime numbers without talking about demographics. Something like 80% of black children in Chicago are born to single mothers. If black women in the city stopped having kids before marriage, and if black men stopped abandoning their families, the crime problem would go away overnight. Just the slightest bit of self-control would fix all of this. But Brandon doesn’t mention that. I wonder why. Instead, he openly declared an insurrection against the United States government, saying that residents of Chicago should resist the National Guard. Watch: BREAKING – Brandon Johnson is now holding a rally where he is calling on the citizens of Chicago to defend the city against federal troops.pic.twitter.com/DbTg4C5OyZ — Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) September 2, 2025 Credit: @Rightanglenews/X It’s just layers of dishonesty, on top of more dishonesty. Chicago was not in any sense built by “slaves and indigenous people.” Eastern Europeans, along with Irish and German immigrants, are responsible for the development of Chicago as we know it today. It wasn’t slaves from Africa who built the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which is what transformed the city of Chicago into a major hub of transportation and commerce. Slavery was illegal in Illinois. It was immigrants, mostly Irishmen, who constructed it. Useless bureaucrats like Brandon Johnson had no role in it, whatsoever. And they shouldn’t suggest otherwise, or even talk about the development of the city of Chicago, until they learn some basic history about their own city. But we all know why Brandon Johnson is lying like this. His goal is to dismantle the rule of law in Chicago. He’s been working on that goal for some time.  Last year, he got rid of “ShotSpotter” technology, which allowed law enforcement to pinpoint the location of any shooting, within seconds. Watch:   Credit: ABC 7 Chicago/YouTube.com When you hear politicians like Brandon Johnson claim that they have “solutions,” remember videos like that one. They’ve gone out of their way to make violent crime, much, much worse in Chicago. It’s true that, in our federal system, states are not required to assist the federal government in carrying out certain policy objectives. But it’s also true that states and local governments cannot actively interfere with the federal government’s decision to enforce the law. That is not “state’s rights.” That is treason. Brandon Johnson is openly encouraging residents of Chicago to engage in treason against the United States. And for that reason, Brandon Johnson should be arrested, charged, convicted, and then given the requisite punishment for a capital offense.  Will that ever happen? Probably not. But then again, just a few days ago, Tren de Aragua gang members never thought they’d be intercepted as they sped towards the United States on their drug boats. They certainly didn’t imagine they’d get blown up without any warning. All indications are that we are entering a new phase of federal governance — one where the U.S. military acts to defend the American people, where false narratives from NGOs are ignored, and where criminals are actually punished when they violate the law in public. So maybe Brandon Johnson shouldn’t be so confident. Like Washington D.C. — which has experienced something like a 50% drop in violent crime since the National Guard moved in — Chicago is about to become a much safer place. The more JB Pritzker lies about crime statistics, and the more Brandon Johnson commits treason in public, the more obvious it becomes that this strategy needs to be applied to every major American city. Democrats have no response. They have no counterargument. The safer America becomes, the more they will complain. And in response, every American who’s paying attention will recognize their party for what it is. They are the party of chaos, crime, and cartels. And they should be treated accordingly. 

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Senate Republicans are moving to draft a proposal that would expedite the confirmation process for the 145 stalled Trump nominees awaiting floor consideration. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Wednesday that Republicans are aiming to vote on changing Senate rules to expeditiously confirm dozens of the president’s picks by the end of next week before […]

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News 2025 Hugo Awards 2025 Hugo Awards Nomination Statistics Reveal Several Close Final Ballot Races Many notable Hugo Award nominees just missed the cut in 2025. By Matthew Byrd | Published on September 3, 2025 Image: Working Title Films Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Working Title Films While the 2025 Hugo Awards winners were revealed a couple of weeks ago, the event’s organizers have since released a series of supplemental statistics that reveal how the winners for each category were determined. Most interestingly, they also recently released a report that shows just how close many of the initial nominees came to making the final ballot. For context, nominations for the Hugo Awards are counted using a system that has been dubbed E Pluribus Hugo (EPH). The nominee breakdown sheet mentioned above explains exactly how that system works, but it’s basically an elimination program that turns nominations into “points” that ultimately help determine which nominees make the final ballot. Such systems are designed to help decide which nominees advance to the final ballot in the likely event that multiple nominees receive the same number of initial votes. They can help make tough determining calls in competitive races, and the 2025 Hugo Awards certainly featured quite a few such races. For instance, Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees also just missed the finalist list for the Best Graphic Story or Comic category by one vote, while the Doctor Who episode “Rogue” was one vote shy of making the finalist list for the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form award. It was also noted that three Doctor Who episodes qualifying for that finalist list would have triggered a provision in the awards rules that would have required one of the three episodes to be excluded from the final vote.  This sheet also helps explain what happened to notable initial candidates in other major categories. Helldivers 2 just missed the Best Game or Interactive Work cut by a single vote, while The Substance narrowly missed the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form cut in the final round of voting. It also shows that nominees that did make the initial final ballot in their respective categories (such as Moonstorm in the Lodestar Award race) later had their nominations withdrawn, while other selections (like Dune the Musical Show) were ultimately deemed ineligible for their respective categories. The full nominee breakdown is very much worth reading for both a better look into the mechanics of the voting process and to see just how competitive many of these categories were. Most importantly, it should help you find a few new names for your reading/watchlist. [end-mark] The post 2025 Hugo Awards Nomination Statistics Reveal Several Close Final Ballot Races appeared first on Reactor.