Today is Thursday, October 27, 2022. A significant development occurred today in the ongoing Dumpf saga as this country attempts to hold him accountable for something, anything, before the clock runs out and he is able to escape accountability once more in his long, corrupt life. Thus the House Ways and Means Committee is set to receive his IRS tax returns in one week after a federal appeals court today declined Dumpf’s request to hold up the release.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court could still intervene if Dumpf decides to appeal, which is very likely, considering his record of delay, delay, delay. This development is covered online in an article by Tierney Sneed and Katelyn Polantz entitled “Appeals court clears way for IRS to turn over Trump tax returns to House committee.”

“A three judge panel on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decided they won’t put the handover of the former president’s tax returns on hold after the full appeals court rejected Trump’s request that they review an earlier decision allowing for the release of the returns.”

The committee chairman, Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Richard Neal, said in a statement that Dumpf “tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position.”

Neal further added, “We’ve waited long enough – we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”

With early voting starting already across the country, it appears that millions of voters have turned in their election ballots in 44 states as of today, in an online CNN article by Ethan Cohen, Melissa Holzberg DePalo, and Shania Shelton entitled “More than 13.8 million ballots have been cast in pre-election voting ahead of the 2022 midterms.”

This outcome has been reported by Edison Research and Catalist, which has reported that Florida continues to have the largest number of preelection ballots cast for the midterm elections, at more than 1.9 million. The other states with the most ballots cast include Texas, California, and Georgia each with more than 1 million ballots cast.

Georgia is home to several competitive statewide races this year, including for governor – with GOP incumbent Brian Kemp facing a rematch from four years ago against Democrat Stacey Abrams – and for Senate – where Republican token Black candidate Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in a contest that could decide control of the chamber next year.

In Florida, some counties began early in-person voting this week, but all counties are required to start by Saturday. Fascistic Republican Gov. Ron DeSant-ASS is – Ugh! – favored to win a second term amid chatter of a potential 2024 presidential bid. Heaven help us! Marco Rubio, another GOPer to hate, is also on the November ballot as he seeks a third term against Democratic Rep. Val Demings.

The Lone Star State has the current governor, Greg Abbott, facing Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, in his bid for a third term. Enough already! The state is also hosting three key U.S. House races in three districts in South Texas, where Republicans are hoping to build on their recent inexplicable gains with Latino voters. How Latino voters seem to side with repugnicans is beyond me.

So it’s anyone’s guess as to how these races will go. I can’t believe that the original Democratic momentum has petered out and that Republicans are now favored to win the House, and – God forbid! – the Senate, possibly. How did this happen?

A more hopeful article about the midterm election outcome appears in an online article for The Hill by Olafimihan Oshin entitled “Turnout among young voters expected to match, possibly exceed, midterm record: survey.”

Thus it’s expected that turnout among young voters in next month’s midterm elections is expected to match or possibly exceed the record set in 2018, the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School said after conducting its latest survey.

The poll, published today, found that 40 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 said that they will “definitely” vote in November’s midterm elections, matching the percentage of young voters who shared the sentiment in 2018.

This statistic is heartening: Fifty-seven percent of young voters surveyed said they would prefer Democratic control of Congress, compared to 31 percent who said they’d prefer Republicans to have control of Congress. So this would bear out the fact that younger voters are paying attention to the news out there; they are not just tuned into their cell phones and their music.

A moderate percentage of young voters, twenty-nine percent of those polled, in the survey cited inflation as the most important issue driving their votes. Protecting democracy and abortion each were selected by 16 percent of respondents, and 14 percent listed climate change. Hmm, this doesn’t square with the statistic quoted above concerning which party is favored to control Congress. Will this situation translate into votes for Democrats then in the midterms? Only time will tell.

A more encouraging statistic cited in the survey is that a large percentage of young voters, 73 percent, said they believed the rights of other Americans are under attack, while just 6 percent of respondents disagreed with the sentiment. Fifty-nine percent of young respondents in the survey also believed that their rights are under attack in this country, compared to only 15 percent of those surveyed who think otherwise. Again, these sentiments would appear to favor Democrats in the midterms, not repugnicans.

Despite his very impressive legislative record, President Joe Biden’s job approval slipped 2 percentage points from a spring survey to 39 percent. In the spring of 2021, Biden’s job approval was 20 points higher, pollsters noted. There was no Ukrainian war then and all of its consequential outcomes that I would posit as the reason for his higher approval ratings back then.

The Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School poll was conducted from September 29 to October 18, with a total of 2,123 respondents. The poll’s margin of error was 2.91 percentage points.

On a more personal basis, today I had a 12 p.m. appointment with my internist to get medical clearance for my upcoming hernia procedure next month. The sands of time are certainly slipping away, as October is hurtling to an end and November is creeping up on us.

So I entered the doctor’s dim office around 11:45 a.m. and spoke to the receptionist “Rhonda” about the procedure. She agreed with our decision to cancel our Italy trip in early October to wait until after my procedure. She was very sorry to hear about Jocelyn’s passing. Then she told me to wait in the waiting room to be called into Dr. “Kantor’s” office.

I think I waited about 20 minutes before I was summoned into the doctor’s inner sanctum. I had the form he needed to fill in and fax to the hospital. He asked some questions about my parents and my health habits like if I smoked or drank, when my parents died, and what conditions they had. Then I entered the examining room to be weighed and had my blood pressure taken. Dr. Kantor then listened to my lungs and examined my hernias. “They’re still there,” he mentioned.

After this perfunctory examination, I then took a flu shot. That went well.

When I got home, I filled Elliot in on what transpired in the doctor’s office. Before long, we got ready to go to Metropolitan Avenue to do some chores before picking up Jocelyn’s ashes from the vet.

Elliot went to the Benjamin Moore store to look at wallpaper, while I sat in the car. When he came back, he blithely announced that he chose a pattern already.

From there, we left the car to walk to Nick’s Bistro for lunch. Instead of sitting outside, we chose a table inside. It was practically empty inside.

After lunch, the real fun began when we crossed the street to start the car – which didn’t. We both tried to start the car, but it wouldn’t. Elliot had the good sense to walk into the Benjamin Moore store and speak to one of the managers inside about being stuck on the street.

One of the managers, a burly, bald guy, did come out with, of all things, a portable jump starter that he used to relaunch the car. After a few minutes, we were able to restart the engine. Then we drove directly to our mechanic on 72-01 Metropolitan Avenue, and parked the car in its lot and got out to speak to our auto guy, “Jimmie.”

Elliot stayed in the car while I informed Jimmie of our problem. He said we’d have to leave our 12-year-old car overnight and pick it up sometime tomorrow. So Elliot got out of the car and we waited for the Uber that didn’t come to take us back to our block.

Because of my new iPhone, the Uber app didn’t work; I had to register again for some reason, and I forgot my password. Thus I couldn’t open the app and order a car to pick us up.

So we took a bus that ran on Metropolitan Avenue, the 54, I believe. The bus picked up many schoolchildren going home from school, and got crowded, but we were able to find two seats up front. We got off the bus near 71st Avenue, where Elliot waited for the #23 bus, and I walked home instead. I wanted the exercise at this point.

So that was our less than typical day. We never went to the vet and we never went to a new bookstore located in Ridgewood, Queens, called the Topos Bookstore that Elliot discovered online earlier this morning. Oh well, we can do this another time, most assuredly, at least before my procedure.

Stay safe and be well.