31 Oct 2025

The Loop NFL Picks: Week 9

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Vikings at Lions (-8½)

J.J. McCarthy is back at quarterback after the Vikings tired of watching Carson Wentz try to play with a mangled shoulder. The backup QB over the past few weeks has felt almost as much pain as the Vikings brain trust that jettisoned Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones.
Pick: Lions by 24

Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) walks off the field after the the Vikings loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in a NFL game U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Minnesota Vikings, 28-22. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

49ers at Giants (+2½)

New York rookie sensation Cam Skattebo is done for the season after suffering a grotesque dislocation of his ankle. For viewers watching on TV, it was the most sickening sight since watching the White House East Wing being razed.
Pick: 49ers by 7

New York Giants running back Cam Skattebo, left, gets tackled by Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Zack Baun, right, but injured his ankle in the process during an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

Colts at Steelers (+3½)

Pittsburgh lost to Green Bay last Sunday night and looked horrible doing it thanks to its ugly 1930s throwback jerseys. T’was a bracing sight for observers who believed there had been no possible way to make Aaron Rodgers look worse.
Pick: Colts by 7

Green Bay Packers’ Rashan Gary sacks Pittsburgh Steelers’ Aaron Rodgers during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Falcons at Patriots (-5½)

Former Vikings QB Kirk Cousins failed miserably in Week 8 filling in for the injured Michael Penix in Atlanta’s 34-10 loss to lowly Miami. The NFL’s most overpaid substitute has now updated his famous postgame refrain to “FEW LIKE THAT!”
Pick: Patriots by 7

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins (18) listens for the play call during the second half of an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Danny Karnik)

Bears at Bengals (+2½)

Cincinnati somehow found a way to lose to the winless New York Jets last Sunday. The surprise upset lifted the Jets’ popularity in the Big Apple polls, surging ahead of fellow losers Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa.
Pick: Bengals by 3

Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, center, speaks during a mayoral debate with independent candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, left, and Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, Pool)

Chargers at Titans (+9½)

San Diego hall of fame tight end Antonio Gates is denying a report he was involved in the latest sports high stakes poker scandal. Gates is accused of being a “face card” to attract high rollers to rigged games whenever Chauncey Billups was busy with other Mafia duties.
Pick: Chargers by 21

FILE – In this Sept. 16, 2018, file photo, Los Angeles Chargers’ Antonio Gates warms-up before an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, in Orchard Park, N.Y. Gates announced his retirement, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, following a 16-year career that saw him finish with 116 touchdowns, which is the most by a tight end in NFL history. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus, File)

Saints at Rams (-13½)

Feckless New Orleans is turning to rookie quarterback Tyler Shough and benching Spencer Rattler against the 5-2 Rams. This game is almost as much of a mismatch as the upcoming showdown between the U.S. military and Venezuela.
Pick: Rams by 14

New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (6) throws a pass against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Panthers at Packers (-12½)

Green Bay’s Tucker Kraft fittingly had a career day last Sunday with 143 yards and two touchdowns, just in time for Tight Ends Day. Meanwhile in Carolina, Panthers backup quarterback Andy Dalton looked his age in a 40-9 loss on Geriatric Gingers Day.
Pick: Packers by 14

Green Bay Packers tight end Tucker Kraft (85) carries during the first half of an NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Seahawks at Commanders (+3½)

Former Vikings and Seahawks great Adrian Peterson was arrested on drunk driving charges again last week after being found asleep at the wheel of his SUV while the engine was running. This likely ruins his chances to get hired as Jordan Addison’s designated driver.
Pick: Seahawks by 7

This undated photo released by the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, shows former NFL player Adrian Peterson. (Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Cardinals at Cowboys (-2½)

LSU abruptly fired coach Brian Kelly despite being obligated to pay him a $54 million buyout. Kelly’s utter failure in Baton Rouge means it’s almost certain he’ll be the next head coach hired by Jerry Jones.
Pick: Cardinals by 3

LSU head coach Brian Kelly yells to an official during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Vanderbilt, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Other games

Broncos at Texans (-1½)
Pick: Broncos by 4

Jaguars at Raiders (+3½)
Pick: Raiders by 3

Chiefs at Bills (+1½)
Pick: Bills by 3

FILE – Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) avoids Kansas City Chiefs safety Nazeeh Johnson (13) as he runs for a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game in Orchard Park, N.Y., Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus, File)

Bye week

Browns, Jets, Eagles, Buccaneers

Record

Week 8
10-3 straight up
8-5 vs. spread

Season
75-45-1 straight up (.625)
63-58 vs. spread (.537)

All-time (2003-25)
3894-2146-15 straight up (.645)
2974-2937-145 vs spread (.503)

You can hear Kevin Cusick on Thursdays on Bob Sansevere’s “BS Show” podcast on iTunes. You can follow Kevin on X– @theloopnow. He can be reached at kcusick@pioneerpress.com.

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31 Oct 2025

Today in History: October 31, First African-American plays in an NBA game

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Today is Friday, Oct. 31, the 304th day of 2025. There are 61 days left in the year. This is Halloween.

Today in history:

On Oct. 31, 1950, Earl Lloyd of the Washington Capitols became the first African-American to play in an NBA game; Lloyd would go on to play for nine seasons, winning an NBA championship in 1955 with the Syracuse Nationals.

Also on this date:

In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation making Nevada the 36th state, eight days before the presidential election.

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In 1913, the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across the United States, was dedicated.

In 1941, work was completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, begun in 1927.

In 1961, the body of Josef Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb as part of the Soviet Union’s “de-Stalinization” drive.

In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990, bound from New York to Cairo, crashed off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.

In 1984, Indira Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister for more than 15 years, was assassinated by two of her own security guards.

In 2005, President George W. Bush nominated Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

In 2011, the United Nations estimated that world population had reached seven billion people (world population is greater than eight billion today).

Today’s Birthdays:

Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather is 94.
Actor Stephen Rea is 79.
Olympic gold medal marathoner Frank Shorter is 78.
TV host Jane Pauley is 75.
Football coach Nick Saban is 74.
Film director Peter Jackson is 64.
Rock drummer Larry Mullen Jr. (U2) is 64.
Rock musician Johnny Marr is 62.
Baseball Hall of Famer Fred McGriff is 62.
Actor Rob Schneider is 62.
Actor Dermot Mulroney is 62.
Country singer Darryl Worley is 61.
Actor-comedian Mike O’Malley is 59.
Rapper and guitarist Adam Horovitz (Beastie Boys) is 59.
Rapper Vanilla Ice is 58.
Actor Leticia Wright is 32.
Singer Willow Smith is 25.

31 Oct 2025

Michael Hiltzik: The Republican war on food stamps has a long, ugly history

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Just over a decade ago, when Congress was taking its periodic look at the food stamp program, House Republicans lined up with their legislative hatchets.

Their plan was to slice some $40 billion out of the program over 10 years, a benefit reduction of more than 5%. Among the promoters of the cut was Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican from the far north of California. He called the proposal a “modest change” and expressed wonderment that it faced opposition, including among Republican Senators.

“To think that we can’t retract just a little bit of the spending over something that’s grown exponentially in the last three or four years,” he said at an Agriculture Committee hearing.

A bit of context is needed here. First, the food stamp program — formally the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — had grown over the previous few years because Americans had been struggling through the Great Recession.

Second, as I pointed out then, LaMalfa was among the many budget-cutting Republicans who had their snouts in the farm-subsidy trough. In his case, the farm he co-owned with other family members  collected $5.1 million in government crop subsidies from 1995 through 2012.

The proposed cuts didn’t pass, not then. But the 2013 effort reflected a long-term Republican effort to cut food assistance programs for America’s neediest families. That’s important to keep in mind  now, when the Trump administration already has taken steps to cut off all SNAP funding as of Saturday, Nov. 1.

The White House and the Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP, blame the government shutdown, asserting that federal law prohibits it from advancing SNAP funds as long as the shutdown continues.

But that’s untrue, according to legislative expert s— and according to the USDA itself. As recently as Sept. 30, when the shutdown was still only a glimmer on the horizon, the agency stated in its “Lapse of Funding Plan” that $6 billion in contingency reserves that Congress had appropriated in 2024 and earlier this year would be “available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs in the middle of the fiscal year,” which began Oct 1.

The USDA subsequently removed the Lapse of Funding Plan from its website. It now maintains, according to a departmental press release, that “the contingency fund is a source of funds for contingencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program,” which provides benefits for residents affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, not for government shutdowns. Never mind that the first Trump administration used the same funding to continue SNAP benefits during the 2019 government shutdown.

I asked the USDA for the legal underpinning of its SNAP cutoff this time around, and received in reply a partisan screed parroting the GOP position that the shutdown is the Democrats’ fault: “We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats,” it stated. “Continue to hold out for the Far-Left wing of the party or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely … SNAP allotments.”

Before further examining the legal backdrop of the administration’s SNAP cutoff, let’s examine the role SNAP plays in the government safety net and the broader economy.

SNAP is the government’s largest food assistance program. Benefits are entirely federally funded, but administrative costs are shared by the feds and the states, 50-50. (Trump wants to raise the state burden of those costs to 75%.)

Last year SNAP’s caseload reached nearly 42 million people. About two-thirds of the beneficiaries are in families with children and more than a third are in families with elderly or disabled members.

SNAP’s eligibility standards are strict. Recipients must have net income below 100% of the federal poverty line (about $32,000 for a family of four). More than 80% of SNAP households earn less than that, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,  which also calculated that more than 40% live in deep poverty, meaning their income is less than half of the poverty line. Recipients can’t have more than $3,000 in assets such as cash or bank accounts (homes, retirement plans and cars needed for work aren’t counted).

More than 21 million children, or more than one in four American children, live in SNAP households.

The program’s benefits are nothing like lavish. The average benefit this year is $715 for a family of four, which works out to less than $2 per individual meal per day. That doesn’t mean that the benefit cutoff is manageable for the average SNAP family, despite the assertions of LaMalfa and his ilk that the cuts the House contemplated in 2013 were “modest.”

For those dependent on the program, the cutoff can devastate household budgets. “A tidal wave of need” faces families who have spent their October allotments and can’t count on their benefit accounts being refreshed on Nov. 1, as my colleagues Kevin Rector, Jenny Gold, Ana Ceballos and Rebecca Plevin reported. In California, 5.5 million residents, including 2 million children, will be forced deeper into penury.

Food banks and other private or institutional programs can’t fill the vacuum left by the disappearance of federal benefits.

“People really don’t understand the scale and scope of what is happening and the ripple effect it will have on the economy and with people just meeting their basic needs,” Angela F. Williams, president and chief executive of United Way, told The Times.

What’s seldom understood by the program’s critics is its importance to the U.S. economy generally and the farm economy in particular. Because SNAP is counter-cyclical — meaning it expands when the economy slumps and shrinks during recoveries, every dollar spent on benefits yields as much as $1.50 in economic gains. As a team of USDA analysts calculated in 2019,  every $1 billion in SNAP benefits produces a $1.5-billion gain in gross domestic product, “which supports 13,560 new jobs — including $32 million added income going to agricultural industries that support 480 agricultural jobs.”

Indeed, farmers always have been among the biggest supporters of SNAP. Not only do they accept SNAP benefits at their community markets, but they also count on the program as a dependable customer for their crops. Like other safety net programs, SNAP has an impact on the economy that is especially powerful because recipients redeem their benefits promptly; the USDA has found that 97% of benefits are spent within one month of their issuance.

Despite its obvious virtues, congressional conservatives never have ceased trying to whittle down the program since its creation in 1939, when the effects of the Great Dperession still were being felt across the country.

Many of the most familiar criticisms reflect the “undeserving poor” myth — the notion that SNAP enrollees are lazy spongers on the public purse. A common claim is that food stamps are spent on luxury foods like lobster. A 2015 bill signed into law by Wisconsin’s conservative Republican governor, Scott Walker, barred the use of SNAP funds to buy “crab, lobster, shrimp, or any other shellfish.”

Most such claims arise from anecdotes of dubious reliability: “I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs with their (SNAP) cards,” a Missouri Republican pushing a law to restrict SNAP purchases told the Washington Post in 2015. “When I can’t afford it on my pay, I don’t want people on the taxpayer’s dime to afford those kinds of foods either.”

In 2018, during Trump’s first term, his administration proposed replacing half of SNAP benefits with “food boxes” containing “shelf-stable milk, ready-to-eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit, vegetables, and meat, poultry or fish.”

Nothing in the plan said who would prepare these boxes or decide what went into them, how they would be distributed, or why SNAP recipients couldn’t be trusted to assemble their own market baskets. The administration did acknowledge, however, that the change would cost the states $2.5 billion a year in new administrative costs.

Surveys have found that SNAP households buy essentially from the same market basket as non-SNAP households  — staples such as fresh fruits and vegetables, beef, pork and chicken.

Republican hostility to SNAP coalesced in the drafting of the budget bill enacted this summer, which cut $187 billion from the program over 10 years — “the largest cut to SNAP in history,” in the judgment of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. About 4 million Americans would have  their benefits cut substantially or eliminated altogether, the Congressional Budget Office calculated.

The measure would require some states to cover anywhere from 5% to 15% of benefit costs, up from zero. The measure also expanded the program’s work requirements; under preexisting law, adults ages 18 to 54 without children in their household had to work or attend a training program for at least 80 hours a month to receive benefits for more than three months within any three-year period. The budget bill expanded that requirement to adults up to age 64.

Now we have the Trump White House exploiting the government shutdown to strip SNAP benefits from more than 40 million needy Americans with a single stroke.

Its explanation swears at the law, which mandates that benefits be continued without a break during any such shutdown. Whether the benefits can be saved is an open question; the District of Columbia and 25 states, including California, sued the administration Tuesday to block the cutoff. But administrative obstacles already erected by the USDA may have made the continuation of benefits past Nov. 1 without delay difficult, if not impossible.

The states say that laws passed last year and this year made clear that Congress intended payments to continue through a shutdown, and provided $6 billion in funding to ensure that happens.

But the cutoff has less to do with the law’s mandates than the oft-expressed desire of this administration to get its way by imposing maximum pain and cruelty on the  defenseless. In this government, men, women and children on the edge of hunger are merely pawns in a partisan campaign. Come Nov. 1, they still will be pawns, but hungrier.

Michael Hiltzik is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

 

31 Oct 2025

David M. Drucker: The perverse incentives fueling this long shutdown

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What if the federal government shut down and few people noticed — or cared? Nearly one month since the lights went out in Washington, most Americans don’t seem all that aware, let alone upset. Perhaps that’s why Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and President Donald Trump, are showing little interest in supporting compromise legislation to fund the government, reopen shuttered agencies and restart paused services.

Speaker Mike Johnson has basically disbanded the House of Representatives indefinitely, signaling he won’t gavel the chamber back into session until Senate Democrats vote to reopen Washington, although the Louisiana Republican’s apparent confidence that the politics of the impasse are unfolding in his party’s favor — shared by Trump and the Senate GOP — might yet prove incorrect. (House Republicans approved short-term legislation to fund the government before the money ran out on Sept. 30. Senate Democrats filibustered the bill, and here we are.)

“If you aren’t a government worker fretting payless paydays, the shutdown has shown very few impacts on American life,” Republican operative Barret Marson told me.

I checked in with Marson late last week because he is based in metropolitan Phoenix. His political environment is the perfect combination of “not the Washington bubble” and “battleground state that absorbs its fair share of partisan advertising.” His read: “People outside DC care more about the NBA gambling scandal and what the real meaning of 6-7 is than whether someone in the Bureau of Labor Statistics is showing up to an office. Impacts to daily life in Arizona seem scant.”

As Marson points out, if you’re among the millions of federal employees who are, or might be, adversely impacted by this latest government shutdown, you have noticed and you do care . Ditto your family, friends and the communities invested in your financial and psychological well-being. Soon to be added to their ranks if the shutdown doesn’t end soon: Americans who rely on SNAP benefits (food stamps) as well as active duty military and their families.

Their concerns might eventually spread to voters who aren’t directly affected. Maybe the air traffic controllers will walk off the job; Transportation Safety Administration employees (airport security screeners) might do the same. Americans hate to be inconvenienced, especially around major travel holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Cumulatively, lawmakers in both parties could be compelled to change course, possibly quickly. But for now, Democrats and Republicans in Washington — and Trump — aren’t feeling intense pressure to end the government shutdown. If anything, and this is the key point, the incentives for all involved are to keep the dysfunction rolling.

First, let’s attend to the Democrats.

Congressional Democrats are demanding an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies in exchange for their votes to reopen the government. The subsidies are popular and without them, health insurance costs are going to skyrocket, and not just for Democrats in blue states. Many voters who swear by Trump and live in red states are going to suffer, which is why MAGA acolyte, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, wants to compromise with the Democrats.

That and the polling, which is not all that bad for the Democrats so far, would be enough for them to keep the fight going. But there’s a third reason, and it’s probably the most important: For months, the Democratic Party’s progressive base has demanded more resistance to Trump from their establishment’s leaders, who for decades opposed tactical government shutdowns as a matter of principle. Having taken the plunge and been rewarded by a swooning base, Democratic leaders have little motivation to quit (yet).

“Only pain will push a resolution,” Dane Strother, a Democratic operative who splits time between Sacramento and DC, told me. “This could well continue for some time.”

Strother offered both a word of caution for his party — “there are no winners in the shutdown” — and some blame Trump and the GOP: “Voters recognize Republicans control all three branches of government. Trump thrives on chaos so he won’t step up and work for a solution so this could well continue for some time.” Well, yes, but.

As I’ve previously written, the party that instigates the shutdown is typically rebuked by voters because they view the tactic as an illegitimate form of political combat. Check with the losing side in prior shutdowns. Trump and Republicans are accordingly confident that, as the president is fond of saying, they have more cards to play in this standoff.

It also can’t be said enough: Trump and congressional Republicans simply do not want to show weakness and reward the Democrats’ shutdown strategy by extending Obamacare subsidies in exchange for votes to reopen Washington. “We are not going to hold the American people hostage to have a policy dispute,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair said in an interview with Punchbowl News. “Let’s figure out what we can do together (on health care). “But you have to open the government.”

And so, from the Republicans’ perspective, compromise carries a bigger risk than digging in. They’re probably right to feel that way. But a caveat:

The party that provokes the shutdown tends to lose partly because the other party plays the role of innocent bystander, doing everything possible short of acquiescing to the opposition’s demands, while doing everything legally possible to mitigate the disruption. Trump laying off government workers and selectively withholding funds from districts and states represented by congressional Democrats — even Johnson recessing the House — risk making the president and his party look like active participants in the shutdown, just like the Democrats.

That unusual factor has the potential to scramble how voters assign blame.

David M. Drucker is columnist covering politics and policy. He is also a senior writer for The Dispatch and the author of “In Trump’s Shadow: The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP.”