This week we will hopefully be viewing the movie Invisable Children, (event is being hosted by the new SG Club Invisable Children) the movie shows on the 10th at 8:30 in Webb Audatorium, (art building) belos is information from Wikipedia about the movie.
Invisible Children: Rough Cut is a documentary recorded in 2003 based on the experiences of three college students (Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole) in Northern Uganda. The filmmakers are from San Diego, California in the United States. They went to the Sudan to ‘find a story,’ but ended up in northern Uganda where they found thousands of people affected by the insurgency of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The resulting story focuses on the war’s effects on children, particularly child soldiers, referred to in the movie as Night Commuters.
They found that thousands of children flee their homes nightly in order to escape being abducted by the LRA. Children in Uganda are regularly abducted by these rebel soldiers to be trained as child soldiers. The children who run from their homes walk miles, often to cities like Gulu, to find shelter in hospitals or bus parks - virtually anywhere far away from rebel camps.
The filmmakers have also started a related nonprofit organization, called Invisible Children Inc., designed to help curb the problem. This is accomplished primarily by sending volunteers to Acholiland, the affected region in Northern Uganda, to aid former child-soldiers in re-integration into normal civic life through education and extensive psychological evaluation and treatment. It has been established in the United States and is currently involved with distributing copies of the Invisible Children DVD to as many people as possible.

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It’s true, in 7 days, Democrats will probably have a majority in the House.

Unfortunately there’s a good chance that the representative in RIT’s district, Randy Kuhl, a man who:

• has stood behind the administration as a loyal lapdog for the last two years
• threatened his wife with two shotguns (http://www.gunguys.com/?p=1481)
• tries to scare voters into voting for him ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZU-_dfOOzvI)
• is allowing the closing of a VA hospital in the district that provides critical psychiatric evaluations to troops returning from overseas ( http://www.mpnnow.com/news/view_story.php?articleId=4051)

is going to be re-elected?

Instead why not elect a man who:

• spent 24 years in the Navy, and knows what true leadership means
• worked as an assistant to the Commander of NATO in Bosnia
• has a bill already written for single-payer health care that he will introduce on the floor of the House his first week there
• wants to raise the Pell Grant (that most college students rely on) to at least $5,100 from a current maximum around $4,000

I know College Students generally don’t give money to campaigns, we’re strapped for cash as it is, but everyone can afford 5$, maybe a little more if you’re willing to skip ordering that pizza you can give 15$ even without hurting yourself.  In addition, to help make these small donations help even more:

I am willing to personally match every penny that RIT College Dems or their friends contribute.

If you give 5$, your friend gives 2$, and your roommate gives 13$ that’s another 20$ that I’m going to give.

To donate online: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/entity/8515
fill out the form, you’ll get a confirmation email, forward it to me and I’ll add it to what I contribute.

If you’d rather give a small cash donation reply to this email and we’ll work it out.

If you’d rather give your money to another race or to the DCCC I’m also willing to match donations to other races including these:
money to the general House campaign fund, the DCCC - https://www.dccc.org/contribute/default/?id=leftnav  (these donations are being matched 3:1 by Congressional Dems, with my 2-1 donation your donation will turn into 6 dollars for every dollar you contribute)
the general Senate campaign fund, the DSCC -https://secure.democratsenators.org/dia/organizations/dscc/shop/contributedscc.jsp

James Turk

President, RIT College Democrats

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Filed under: NY-29, NY-Gov

Although it may come as a surprise to some, I’m sure we’re all aware that this November 7th, there is an election.

A lot of people are not involved because there is no Presidential election, a lot of people won’t even vote. Also a lot of Democrats in the area observe that Spitzer and Clinton are both going to win their races in a landslide, so there is no need to help the Democrats this year.

Here’s where they’re wrong:

Polling data is showing that 48 Senate seats are leaning towards the Democrats, 48 leaning towards the Republicans, and 2 are tied
They are also showing that the Democrats are hovering somewhere between 215 and 220 seats in the House, a party needs 218 to control the body

(http://electoral-vote.com)

The House represents the Democrats best chance to win a chamber of Congress this November, and only being a few seats away from winning that majority, Republicans on the ropes in New York are obvious places that we can make a difference:

Recently Tom Reynolds, chair of the NRCC and Congressman for the NY-26 which neighbors RIT’s district, has been in the news. It seems like he may have been aware of the disgraceful actions taken by Congressman Foley. His opponent, Democrat Jack Davis, is withing striking distance, and the Foley scandal may put him over the top in what was originally considered a tough pick-up.

In 2004, Republican Randy Kuhl won election even after it was disclosed that he had threatened his wife with a shotgun and had several DUI charges. Randy Kuhl is currently running in RIT’s district, the NY-29th against Democrat Eric Massa, a naval veteran. This race is currently polling as a statistical tie, and could very possibly be a pick-up in November.

These are two races that each and every one of us has the ability to influence. Many of you are registered in one of these districts, and even those of you who are not can take a few hours in the next 32 days to phone bank, to walk door to door, or even just to talk to friends and family about why they should do what they can to help win a Democratic majority in Congress for 2006. We’ll do our best to keep you up to date on these races via this blog.

The last 30 days of the campaign, especially close ones, are where elections are won and lost. I want to ask each of you to participate in at least one event in the next 30 days.

What We Can Do:

This Sunday (October 8th) we’re going door to door for Massa.
Next week we’re going to be doing phone banking at least one night, possibly more.
If enough members want to try to unseat Reynolds in the NY-26 (which goes West from Rochester to Buffalo) we’ll also take a trip in the next few weeks to canvass for Davis.
Keep an eye on this blog and on your inbox for more details on upcoming events

There are four more Tuesdays between now and November 7th. Instead of normal meetings we’ll be doing phone banking, some sort of training/planning for canvassing, or having someone speak to the club. On Election Day we’d like to have a big party celebrating all of the work we’ve done, and the Democratic victories we all helped achieve.

How To Get Involved:

If at any point between now and election day you decide that you want to dedicate a few hours of your time, send an email to rit.dems@gmail.com or reply to any of the many event notifications that are going to be going out these next 32 days.

Once you let us know you’re interested and we’ll get you on the list for that event and do our best to coordinate with you so that you can help out. We have volunteers from within the club and within the campaigns that are willing to give rides.

-James Turk
President, RIT College Democrats

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Filed under: NY-29, NY-Gov

We just had our first general meeting, and despite a rocky start we have some exciting things that the club hopes to be involved in this year.

For those of you who weren’t able to attend here are the main points from this first meeting:

• NY Races
  • NY-Sen: Hillary Clinton, will be an easy win for her, not much help needed/requested from us
  • NY-Gov: Eliot Spitzer, another easy win, would like help but club will focus more on tighter races
  • NY-29: Eric Massa, the district that RIT is in, a tight race against a 1-term Republican incumbent, where we can make the most difference
  • NY-25: Dan Maffei, a district from Rochester to Syracuse, need to win nearby Irondequoit to win, could use some help from us
  • NY-26: Jack Davis, a district from Rochester to Buffalo, a tough race against an entrenched Republican, but high profile
• Voter Registration
  • Register people to vote is something we can do
  • Good to work with Republicans on this one if they want to help
  • club should try to register people in-district
    • will help Massa
    • they’re more likely to vote because this is where they will be on election day for a few years and where they are closer to issues
    • deadline is Oct. 13 in NY (around there in most states too)
    • James will be taking registrations to county office to save people the hassle of postage
• How the club will help with campaigns
  • Every weekend try to have people either phone banking or canvassing
  • register voters in-district (for Massa)
  • Develop dorm-captain system to get people to vote
• Other Notes
  • Operation Welcome Home - welcome home troops from overseas at airport
  • RIT Gay Alliance (RITga) is interested in a progressive-club carnival on quarter mile (details coming soon)
  • We want interests of members to guide club, so speak up if you want the club involved in an event
  • Need to start engaging fellow students, civilly and respectfully (work quarter mile on Friday)

We have tons of campaign materials for Spitzer and Massa, if anyone would like handbills, bumper stickers, stickers, or pins contact rit.dems@gmail.com

We also have NY State Voter Registration forms, if you’d like to reregister in NY please get in touch with us and we can help you do that.

That’s all for now, details on the next meeting will be posted soon.

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Filed under: NY-29, NY-Gov