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Peppin pimping hate: House member's spouse "lobbies" caucus on amendment--for whom?
Earlier this week, Bluestem took a look at Senator Dave Thompson's consulting contracts with the Republican Party of Minnesota. As I catch up on contract puzzles, here's one piece from the marriage inequality amendment putsch, from Briana Bierschbach's article, House GOP vote on marriage amendment was defining issue of session's last days:
Donors pressured Dean, Dean pressured members
After leaving the floor, Kelly said he had offered to step down from the House GOP Executive Committee for his stance, but Zellers declined his offer. "There was no arm-twisting, and nothing behind closed doors," he added.
But other reports say plenty of arm-twisting was done, principally by Dean and his executive assistant, Bill Walsh. The efforts continued even as the debate proceeded. Another GOP operative said former legislators were using their influence to push for the amendment on Saturday evening, including former GOP House Rep. and 2012 U.S. Senate candidate Dan Severson, and even U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who authored the amendment during her time in the state Senate. Longtime former House GOP operative Gregg Peppin, who now runs his own strategy and lobbying shop, was signed to a one-week contract to lobby members to support the amendment. . . .
. . .By Peppin's account, the fact that the Senate had already passed the amendment put pressure on the House to do so, too. "Frankly, it's probably best for both sides that the issue at the legislative level is settled this year, and the campaigns can begin," he said.
He added that there was a lot of discussion internally about whether it should happen in 2011 or 2012, especially as the leadership started out the year touting a budget-first agenda. But ultimately the prospect of wealthy donors on the pro-gay marriage side persuaded them to go for this session, Peppin said. "[Pro-gay marriage campaigns] typically have many well-to-do donors nationwide," he noted, "and while there are some wealthy anti-gay-marriage supporters, there are more $5 and $10 donors on that side, and that money will take time to gather."
Donations played into the calculus of the amendment vote in another way, according to one source who monitored the amendment effort. House Republican caucus uber-funder Robert Cummins, the chief executive officer of Primera Technology, is a fervid backer of the amendment and a past donor to anti-gay-marriage initiatives. Since 2004, Cummins has contributed more than $408,000 to groups like Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage — now Minnesota Majority — and the Minnesota Family Council, and has thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars at the House GOP caucus campaign chest. In a June 2010 Capitol Report story, then-caucus treasurer Matt Dean said Cummins is much more involved than the average donor. He works directly with House leaders to recruit Republican candidates to run in each district. "He understands the importance of winning elections," Dean said at the time.
"Promises must have been made to outside sources," the source said, adding that the caucus was reportedly promised several million dollars for the 2012 elections from various groups if the amendment passed this session.
Peppin understands that the vote was likely difficult for freshmen to make, especially those who narrowly won in swing districts last fall or those who campaigned on fiscal issues, not social ones. That was the case for freshman Rep. Kurt Bills, a schoolteacher from Rosemount who ultimately voted for the legislation.
Was Peppin hired by Dean's caucus to do the lobbying? Or was he hired by the wealthy donors mentioned in the article?
It's not entirely clear. If Peppin, the spouse of Representative Joyce Peppin, was hired by the caucus office, was the contract paid by by taxpayers? Or was the caucus campaign committee charged? Maybe those deep pockets.
Then there's also the question of that "strategy and lobbying shop" mentioned in the article. Peppin's shop, P2P Strategies describes itself as on its front page:
Without attention-grabbing images, compelling copy and superior graphic design, voters won't even notice your political communications, let alone read them.
P2B Strategies is the idea team for Republican candidates, party and caucus committees, public policy/trade associations and issue advocacy groups.
We hone your message to produce creative direct mail and other political communications that win votes…and elections.
That's election material, mostly. Under the about section, P2P Strategies opens with:
We are a full service political consulting shop specializing in direct mail and voter contact literature for Republican candidates. We pride ourselves on providing quality service and products with a personal touch. We work non-stop to get you across the finish line.
Many of our clients like the efficiency that comes with using just one company for all their political communications needs. We offer a wide range of products and services and even if we don't have what you're looking for, we'll find a way to get the job done! We're always looking for ways to improve our clients chances at the polls.
Neither description is exactly lobbying. Nor does Gregg Peppin show up on the Lobbyist Index at the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board. Nor do any of the other talent at the agency. And when Ben Golnik and Peppin merged forces back in December, the Strib's Hot Dish blog described it as a "public relations and mobilization business." None of the alliance's personnel is a lobbyist, either.
Did whomever funded Peppin slide under the wire for definition of "lobbyist"? From the campaign finance board's overview of lobbying:
An individual who communicates with public or local officials or urges others to communicate with public or local officials becomes a lobbyist after the individual:
Is paid more than $3,000 in a year from all sources for lobbying,
Spends more than $250 on lobbying, or
Spends more than 50 hours in any month if the individual is a non-elected local official or an employee of a political subdivision
Will we ever know who paid for this hot mess? Taxpayers? Caucus campaign committee contributors? An association?
Photo: Seriously not Gregg Peppin.
Bleg: If you enjoyed this post, please consider throwing some coin in Bluestem Prairie's tip jar during its early June bleg-o-thon. To learn more, read Bluestem Prairie preservation drive: help keep a different prairie voice publishing.
Posted by Sally Jo Sorensen on Jun 03, 2011 at 09:49 PM in Human rights, Minnesota legislature, Postmoronic Politics, State Legislature | Permalink
Robert Cummins... now where have I heard that name before? Ah, here: http://www.citypages.com/2008-05-28/feature/robert-cummins/
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Jun 03, 2011 at 10:17 PM


Carl Jordan and Jarren Reynolds each had 13 points to lead the Dugway boys basketball team to a 68-33 win at home over the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind on Friday night. TJ Ramos added 10 points for the Mustangs (6-4), who led 36-11 at halftime after rushing out to a 14-2 first-quarter advantage. Dugway plays host to Telos in its Region 21 opener Wednesday.
at Juan Diego, 7 p.m.
Tooele wrestling at Stansbury, 7 p.m.
The BYU men's basketball team (15-4, 4-2 WCC) routed Santa Clara 84-50 in a West Coast Conference game in Santa Clara, Calif., on Saturday behind 22 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists from Yoeli Childs.
The Utah men's basketball team (10-7, 2-4 Pac-12) lost badly to USC on Saturday, falling 84-67 to the Trojans in Los Angeles. Justin Bibbins had 19 points in the loss for the Utes, who have lost four games in a row.
The Utah State men's basketball team (10-9, 3-3 MWC) lost 83-57 to Nevada on Saturday in Reno, Nev. Dwayne Brown Jr. led the Aggies with 13 points in a losing effort.


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Q: Creating an algorithm which checks if a graph is connected or not So an old exam question was asked like that.
I was wondering what that means, because a graph can be directed or not. In a directed graph it should be working like that (I guess):
Create two Arrays: A[], A_inverse[] //both in size N (N nodes exists), both arrays initalized with NULL
Run depth-first search on Graph G
     save in A[] all Nodes which are visted
         If(A.size < |N|) return false
G' = Reverse all edges of G
Run depth-first search on Graph G'
     save in A_inverse[] all Nodes which are visted
         If(A_inverse.size < |N|) return false
return true

For the time-complexity it is T(N) = 2*DFS + |E| + c. 2*DFS because im calling it twice (once for the G and once for G'). |E| because I need to reverse all Edges. c are all conditions and initializings.
Is my algorithm correct?

A: In a strongly connected graph G, there must be a path from any node A to any (other) node B.
To start, note that there is a path from B to A in the flipped graph G' if and only if there is a path from A to B in the original graph G.
Assume the DFS starts at some origin node O.
First we show that if G is strongly connected, the algorithm returns true.

*

*The first DFS will reach all the nodes, since by assumption there is a path from O to every other node.

*Again by assumption, there's a path from every node to O. It follows that in G' (where all edges are flipped), there's a path from O to every other node. The second DFS will therefore also reach all nodes, and the algorithm returns true.

Now consider a graph G that is not strongly connected, i.e., there's a pair of nodes (A, B) such that there exists no path from A to B. We have to show that the algorithm returns false. There are two cases to consider:

*

*There is no path from A to O. In this case, the flipped graph G' cannot contain a path from O to A. Therefore, the second DFS will not reach A from O and the algorithm returns false.

*There is a path from A to O: In this case, there cannot be a path from O to B because if there were, our assumption that there is no path from A to B would be wrong. Since there is no path from O to B, the first DFS will not reach B from O and the algorithm returns false.

We proved that the algorithm returns true if G is strongly connected and false otherwise. It is therefore correct.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Q: I can't see data I have added using forms on database I am using PHP and MySQL to add data to a database. When I add data to a form and submit the data I get a message saying the data has been successfully added. However when I view the database on phpMyAdmin all I see is a blank row with nothing in it!
The database is for storing new partners of the company
Here is the code.
<?php

error_reporting(E_ERROR);

if (isset($_POST["newpartner-submit"])) {

    $typeofpartner = $_POST["TypeofPartner"];
    $orgname = $_POST["OrganaizatoinName"];
    $location = $_POST["location"];
    $Address = $_POST["Address"];
    $focalftastaff = $_POST["focalftastaff"];
    $principalname = $_POST["PrincipalName"];
    $Telephone = $_POST["Telephone"];
    $Email = $_POST["npEmail"];
    $Interests = $_POST["biginput1"];
    $IndicateOrpotunities = $_POST["biginput2"];
    $IndicatePartnership = $_POST["biginput3"];
    $specify = $_POST["biginput4"];
    $listkeychallenges = $_POST["biginput5"];
    $partnershipAgreement = $_POST["PartnershipAgreementinplace"];
    $Implementationdate = $_POST["implementationperiod"];
    $agreementavailable = $_POST["PartnerAgrementAvailable"];

    require_once 'dbh.inc.php';
    require_once 'nptfunctions.inc.php';

    if (emptyInputnewpartner($typeofpartner, $orgname, $location, $Address, $focalftastaff, $principalname, $Telephone, $Email, $Interests, $IndicateOrpotunities, $IndicatePartnership, $specify, $listkeychallenges) !== false) {
        header("location: ../php/newpartner.php?error=emptyInput");
        exit();
    }
    if (invalidAddress($Address) !== false) {
        header("location: ../php/newpartner.php?error=invalidAddress");
        exit();
    }
    if (invalidTelephone($Telephone) !==false) {
        header("location: ../php/newpartner.php?error=invalidTelephoneNumber");
        exit();
    }
    if (invalidnptEmail($Email) !== false) {
        header("location: ../php/newpartner.php?error=invalidEmail");
        exit();
    }

    createnpt($conn, $typeofpartner, $orgname, $location, $Address, $focalftastaff, $principalname, $Telephone, $Email, $Interests, $IndicateOrpotunities, $IndicatePartnership, $specify, $listkeychallenges, $partnershipAgreement, $Implementationdate, $agreementavailable);

}else {
    header("location: ../php/newpartner.php");
    exit();
}

dbh.inc.php code
<?php

$servername = "localhost";
$dbUsername = "root";
$dbPassword = "";
$dbname = "fta pms";

$conn = mysqli_connect($servername, $dbUsername, $dbPassword, $dbname);

if (!$conn) {
    die("Connection failed: " . mysqli_connect_error());
}

nptfunctions.inc.php code
<?php

function emptyInputnewpartner($typeofpartner, $orgname, $location, $Address, $focalftastaff, $principalname, $Telephone, $Email, $Interests, $IndicateOrpotunities, $IndicatePartnership, $specify, $listkeychallenges) {
    $result = null;
    if (empty($typeofpartner) || empty($orgname) || empty($location) || empty($Address) || empty($focalftastaff) || empty($principalname) || empty($Telephone) || empty($Email) ||empty($Interests) || empty($IndicateOrpotunities) || empty($IndicatePartnership) || empty($specify) || empty($listkeychallenges)) {
        $result = true;
    } else {
        $result = false;
    }
    return $result;
}

function invalidAddress($Address) {
    $result = null;
    if (preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$/", $Address)) {
        $result = true;
    }
    else {
        $result = false;
    }
    return $result;
}

function invalidTelephone($Telephone) {
    $result = null;
    if (!is_numeric($Telephone)) {
        $result = true;
    }
    else {
        $result = false;
    }
    return $result;
}

function invalidnptEmail($Email) {
    $result = null;
    if (!filter_var($Email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
        $result = true;
    }
    else {
        $result = false;
    }
    return $result;
}

function createnpt($conn, $typeofpartner, $orgname, $location, $Address, $focalftastaff, $principalname, $Telephone, $Email, $Interests, $IndicateOrpotunities, $IndicatePartnership, $specify, $listkeychallenges, $partnershipAgreement, $Implementationdate, $agreementavailable){
    $sql = "INSERT INTO newpartner (typeofpartner, orgname, location, Address, focalftastaff, principalname, Telephone, Email, Interests, IndicateOrpotunities, IndicatePartnership, specify, listkeychallenges, partnershipAgreement, Implementationdate, agreementavailable) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?);";
    $stmt = mysqli_stmt_init($conn);
    if (!mysqli_stmt_prepare($stmt, $sql)) {
        header("location: ../php/newpartner.php?error=stmtFailed");
        exit();
    }

    mysqli_stmt_bind_param($stmt, "ssssssssssssssss", $typeofpartner, $orgname, $location, $Address, $focalftastaff, $principalname, $Telephone, $Email, $Interests, $IndicateOrpotunities, $IndicatePartnership, $specify, $listkeychallenges, $partnershipAgreement, $Implementationdate, $agreementavailable);
    mysqli_stmt_execute($stmt);
    mysqli_stmt_close($stmt);
    header("location: ../php/newpartner.php?error=none");
    exit();
}


^ a b Юрий Уфимцев. "Красный" Китай против советских ревизионистов (in Russian). Конкурент.Ru. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
^ "35 years later: Houston's deadly ammonia truck disaster". Houston Chronicle. 2011-05-26. Retrieved 2011-05-27.
^ "1976 ammonia truck disaster". Houston Chronicle. 2011-05-11. Retrieved 2011-05-26.
This page is based on the Wikipedia article 1976; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA). You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.


You may want to make sure you're sitting down for this one. Why? Because Ian Somerhalder carried around Nikki Reed's breast pump at a 2018 Golden Globes celebration and we are clapping our hands.
Now that you've had a sec to catch your breath, let's get down to it. According to PopSugar, Reed posted a photo of Somerhalder holding the pump on her Instagram story. Her caption says it all: "Takes a real man to carry around your breast pump in a 'to go' box all night." Reed also included some illustrative emojis, including prayer hands and praise hands, to show how much she appreciated the gesture.
This past summer, Reed gave birth to a daughter, and the couple hit the red carpet for the first time since becoming parents in September. They might be new to this whole "raising a child" thing, but it seems they've got it down already.
It's great to see Somerhalder really leaning into fatherhood.
Does that look like a box from Whole Foods or what? Allow us to cherish the vision of these two being ultra-resourceful and swiping an extra container from the salad station for breast pump storage.
Somerhalder also posted this sweet photo (taken by Lea Michele, if his caption is to be believed) from the event and revealed that he skipped the red carpet due to some outfit troubles.
Major heart eyes for these two!