Erin Chavez, former Associate Publisher of the Vail Mountaineer, which closed in June along with the Denver Daily News, will launch a weekly called “Sneak Peak Vail.”

Chavez said she saw a hole in the advertising market after the Mountaineer closed, and she developed a business model to meet the demand and make a new newspaper sustainable.

“We’re partnering with core businesses that had supported the Vail Mountaineer,” she says. “We offered them a preferred advertising rate that provides a base for us and stable and inexpensive advertising source for them for years to come.”

After the Mountaineer shut down, Chavez said that local businesses told her that if they had an affordable and guaranteed advertising rate, they’d sign a longer term contract.

She’s got 27 contracts as of Monday, which, she says, is enough to cover the main cost of printing the newspaper. She figures she can offer the reduced rate to a limited number of advertisers before her business will lose money.

The advertisers will have no input on the paper’s editorial content, which will be “more lifestyle-oriented, not based on news in the Vail valley, but more of what is going on and applying it to second home owners and locals,” she said.

Chavez has hired seven staffers and seems excited to give the business model a shot. “I’ve been lucky to have the resources up here to try this,” she said.

She said of the Mountaineer, “The model wasn’t unsuccessful. On paper it makes sense. But when the economy is hurting, and people aren’t paying, cash flow is a big problem.”

She’s hoping her new model, with ongoing support from advertisers, will fix that problem.

Proponents of the legislation (typically Republicans) generally argue that voter ID is not an onerous burden but is necessary to prevent voting fraud.

“These photo ID proposals, while appearing benign on their face, are not,” said Denise Lieberman, the report author and senior attorney of Advancement Project. “They’re part of a larger and more insidious coordinated effort to push back voting rights for voters of color and other vulnerable populations, who saw increased voter turnout in 2008, in an effort that will have the effect of depressing voter turnout in 2012.”

In addition to voter ID legislation, Lieberman highlights initiatives such as King Street Patriot’s True the Vote (KSP/TTV) project to recruit 1 million poll watchers for Election Day 2012. The report cites articles from the Texas Independent on KSP/TTV, and from the Minnesota Independent on assertions by the state’s county attorneys that Minnesota Majority’s reports of massive voter fraud in 2008 were “frivolous.”

Lieberman referred to the Houston tea party’s recent national summit, which drew attendees from more than two dozen states. “This isn’t limited to Harris County, Texas — 2010 was a practice run for a similar nationwide effort in urban centers across the nation in 2012, playing on unsubstantiated fears of so-called voter fraud, which has been documented not to exist, to justify placing full-scale voter challenge and voter-intimidation efforts at polling places and precincts that have disproportionate minority populations,” she said.

The Texas House and Senate have passed differing versions of voter ID legislation, Senate Bill 14 by state Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay). The legislation is now in conference committee.

The House’s version of the bill is especially troublesome, Lieberman said because it does not contain an exemption to the requirement for people age 70 and over.

“Seniors are a particularly vulnerable population because now that exemption is gone, a lot of seniors in Texas will be significantly affected. Many of bills across the U.S. do exempt senior citizens, partly because those are the folks who have the hardest time getting original source documents,” she said.

Additionally, Lieberman said the Texas legislation’s fiscal note is not a true reckoning of how much the law would cost to implement.

Lieberman, of Missouri, said, “One of the problems with Texas is the Legislature is estimating it will cost $2 million. In Missouri, it cost $20 million to implement. We only have 4 million voters, and our law exempts senior citizens from the requirement. $2 million is a paltry sum. It doesn’t begin to account for the actual cost Texas is going to have to incur in providing free IDs.”

She said she would expect the U.S. Department of Justice to raise the same kinds of objections it presented against Georgia’s voter photo ID legislation, which she said only eventually passed Voting Rights Act preclearance once the state spent 10s of millions of dollars to give citizens notice, including via direct mail, public service announcements, public notices, television advertising and notices in everyone’s utility bills.

“If Texas is actually to do all that, do everything Georgia has done, it’s going to cost a lot more than $2 million. They have not allocated the resources to do this right,” she said. “They simply can’t on $2 million, and the bill doesn’t require them to do all of these things. I think that does make it quite suspect under the Voting Rights Act.”

Describing her group as a “civil rights action tank” based in Washington, D.C., Lieberman said Advancement Project and its attorneys are working to combat pending legislation, examining possible legal challenges to laws that are passed, and pushing for gubernatorial vetoes of bills (though not in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry has deemed it a legislative priority).

Young Andy Birkey, a Hereford Red Angus cross, was calved Tuesday, weighing in at 70 pounds, Peterson says. He’s part of a herd that likewise has familiar names: Tom Bakk, Paul Thissen, John Marty and most recently John Lesch. In addition to running the ranch with her husband, Peterson is vice president of Minnesota NOW, chair of DFL Senate District 8 and vice president of the DFL Feminist Caucus.

Birkey is “just so phenomenal,” she says, citing his reporting on bills that would ban certain kids of stem cell research and that would ban abortion in Minnesota after the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. “The Minnesota Independent is the only ‘paper’ talking about some of this.”

Also getting cows named after them: bloggers Rachel Nygaard and Robin Marty (founding editor of the Minnesota Independent). Both have been participating in the Pro-Choice Resources Bowl-a-Thon, which ends today; the rules state that whoever raises the most gets naming rights for cows in Peterson’s herd. But regardless of who wins, both will be commemorated on the farm.

“They’re both going to get one named after them,” Peterson said. “They just don’t know that yet.”

Meet Andy:

Some background: Foxx has received $5,000 in campaign contributions in the last few election cycles from student loan corporation Sallie Mae, an organization that used to provide federally-guaranteed loans to students until Congress passed reform of the practice in 2010, effectively cutting out the middle-man in the process. (Sallie Mae now offers private student loans.) Foxx expressed desire to hold hearings over the loan-reform bill when she assumes the chair of the subcommittee, she told The Chronicle of Higher Education this week:

Ms. Foxx has criticized legislation that ended the bank-based program for supplying federal student loans in favor of 100-percent direct lending, in which students obtain their loans from the Department of Education. She said on Tuesday that the bill “eliminated choice, competition, and innovations from student lending,” and promised hearings aimed at making “improvements to a very flawed law.”

In the clip, Maddow laid out the implications of student loan reform and why it was a “total no-brainer” in easing the deficit and allowing for more loans to students. The section on Foxx goes through the first 3:30 of the clip:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The poll — commissioned by major environmental groups — indicates that cap-and-trade was not a major issue for Republican voters in a slew of House races. Republican voters were asked to name their biggest concern with the Democrat running in the race. While 27 percent chose voting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) agenda, only 7 percent said it was because the Democrat supported the House cap-and-trade bill when offered a list of six options. The poll surveyed 1,000 voters in 83 “battleground” congressional districts.

The poll has received a lot of attention in the last 24 hours not just for its content, but for how it has been reported. Environmentalists have criticized Politico and others for reporting the results of the elections as a “day of reckoning” for lawmakers who voted for the House climate bill. They have also criticized reporters (including me) for treating the poll as an effort by environmentalists to spin the election results. Now, the poll certainly is an effort to spin the election results, but that doesn’t mean the results aren’t significant.

I thought I’d try to give some insight into why reporters cast the poll the way they did. First, and most obvious, the poll was conducted by environmentalists, the very group that benefits from the poll’s findings.

Second, environmental beat reporters did not take into account the broader election narrative. In many ways, this is a problem created by beat reporting. Environmental reporters scoured the election results on Tuesday night looking for story ideas.

Two key races were foremost on my radar and, I can assume, on the radars of other environmental reporters: those of Reps. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.). When both candidates lost in quick succession, the cap-and-trade “referendum” narrative began to take shape.

Perriello has become something of a celebrity on the left, having voted for cap-and-trade, health care and the stimulus package as a Democrat, decisions that could put him in a tight spot in his conservative district on Tuesday. Boucher, also from a conservative Virginia district, voted for the cap-and-trade bill as well, after long negotiations with key lawmakers.

When both Perriello and Boucher lost their races, environmental beat reporters (myself included) quickly noted that both lawmakers had voted for cap-and-trade. The problem is, other issues came into play in these races too. The environmentalist poll says, for example, that only 5 percent of the people who voted for Perriello’s opponent, Republican Robert Hurt, said their biggest concern was Perriello’s vote for the House cap-and-trade bill.

So while 43 Democrats who voted for the House climate bill either lost their races or retired their seats, which were then won by Republicans, it’s difficult to say without specific polling data whether they lost because of their climate vote or for other reasons. Further complicating the idea that the vote was a “referendum” on cap-and-trade, 27 of the 43 Democrats who voted against the House climate bill lost their seats.

While we can’t say cap-and-trade was a key issue in the election, it’s important to note that it was an issue in many races. Cap-and-trade is deeply unpopular among Republicans, and the policy was one of many the GOP employed to criticize President Obama and Democrats. The success of the Republican overall argument — which touched on the economy, the role of government, health care and, yes, cap-and-trade — was the reason for the massive Republican gains in the House and Senate.

I’ve spoken to a few environmentalists who point to several Senate races as examples of where climate change played a major role, including Colorado and Nevada. But while there was a lot of talk of climate change in those races (see Ken Buck), I haven’t seen any indication that either of those races turned on the issue. Like many races in the country, climate change was one of many issues that formed voters’ opinions.

One of the only places, it seems, where climate change played a demonstrable role in the election was in California, with Proposition 23. The ballot initiative, which failed after intense campaigning by the oil industry on one side and environmentalists on the other, would have overturned the state’s landmark global warming law.

Organizers say that journalists without passes will not be allowed into the convention at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. (A Star Tribune request for a pass was denied, the paper’s interest in covering its home-state congresswoman notwithstanding).

Convention spokesman Judson Phillips informs us that most of the sessions are closed “at the request” of the presenters. “Given the media interest, I don’t want the sessions disrupted and overrun with the media,” he said.

This really is unusual. As a journalist, I’ve been allowed into sessions, dinners, everything at conferences hosted by the Eagle Forum and by Focus on the Family. Extra credit to Eagle Forum here — when I was covering the How to Take Back America Conference in St. Louis, Phyllis Schlafly’s son Andy, an organizer, invited me away from my media seat and into a seat at his dinner table to chat with more activists. And some of the most controversial speakers at the National Tea Party Convention, like Rick Scarborough, happily chatted with me inside and outside of their sessions at previous events.

One major implication of this, of course, is that for the third time since the presidential election — the first at a speech in China, the second at a speech for a pro-life group in Indiana — Sarah Palin will give a political speech that members of the media are not allowed to attend. According to co-sponsors I’ve spoken with, they, not journalists, will get to spend time with Palin before and after the speech.

UPDATE: Here’s the rejection email.

Thank you for your inquiry about media coverage of the First National Tea Party Convention in Nashville.

This is a working convention and the sessions will not be open to the press. We are planning two events that the media could have access to. Neither has been finalized. One would be on Friday and the other would be on Saturday.

We have a very limited number of press passes and they have been accounted for. Press without a pass will not be allowed into the convention area.

If you want to interview any of our speakers, please let me know and we will try to work that out.  Governor Palin will not be available for interviews.

If you wish to interview someone about the convention, please email me, Judson@Teapartynation.com and I will try to work out arrangements for that.

He’ll try!

Palin responded to the PolitiFact article with a post on her Facebook page, claiming that, actually, the CBO’s assessment that it would be tough to cut the rate of increase in Medicare is the sort of thing she had been talking about all along. That’s obviously not true. But political reporters are taking note, filing stories about what Palin wrote that don’t add much more context. I really think this is a humiliating exercise.

The problem is that Palin has put the political press in a submissive position, one in which the only information it prints about her comes from prepared statements or from Q&As with friendly interviewers. This isn’t something most politicians get away with, or would be allowed to get away with. But Palin has leveraged her celebrity — her ability to get ratings, the ardor of her fans and the bitterness of her critics — to win a truly unique relationship with the press. She is allowed to shape the public debate without actually engaging in it.

Let’s take the example of her “feud” with Al Gore. Palin’s name appeared on a Dec. 9 op-ed in The Washington Post, calling on President Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate talks because of the “fraudulent scientific practices” of climate scientists. The next day, Andrea Mitchell interviewed Al Gore, author of a new book on scientific responses to climate change, and her very first question was about … Palin’s op-ed. When Gore answered with a blanket response to “global warming deniers,” Mitchell responded by quoting Palin again: “One of the things that she has written recently on Facebook is that this is doomsday scare tactics pushed by an environmental priesthood that makes the public feel like owning an SUV is a sin against the planet.” Gore parried again, and moved on.

Palin responded to this with, yes, another Facebook post, one that was dutifully read aloud and reprinted. “He’s wrong in calling me a ‘denier,” she wrote, even though Gore had rather adroitly shifted the question from Palin — whom reporters care about — to the rather large population of “global warming deniers,” whom he cares about.

In this Politico write-up of the “feud,” Andy Barr posted most of Palin’s response without any kind of fact-check about her claims. That’s not Barr’s fault. The problem is with how Palin chose to engage the media. While Gore submitted to an interview, on camera, Palin lent her name to a Facebook post. I say “lent her name” because there is really no way of telling if Palin wrote the post — that’s probably the biggest problem with the way Palin is using the media here, and the reason I choose not to engage with this stuff. When the Gore “feud” really heated up, Laura Ingraham asked Palin whether she’d debate the former vice president on climate change. Among climate change skeptics, Gore’s unwillingness to face someone like Lord Monckton in a public debate is a burning issue, presented as evidence that Gore can’t handle criticism. When Ingraham posed the question, however, Palin rambled for a bit about how the format might bias Gore’s “friends” against “reasonable voices.” This was more than good enough for Ingraham.

INGRAHAM: But what if it’s an Oxford-style, proper debate format. I mean, he’s going to chicken out. I mean, if you challenge him to a debate, do you actually think he would accept it?

PALIN: I don’t know, I don’t know. Oh, he wouldn’t want to lower himself, I think, to, you know, my level to debate little old Sarah Palin from Wasilla.

So: Palin, having declined to engage Gore in any real-time discussion of climate change — having instead hid behind, basically, press releases — argued that Gore wouldn’t debate her anyway because he’s either a chicken or because he’s an elitist who looks down on her.

I think what Palin’s doing here is incredibly savvy. She knows that anything that goes out under her name will be accepted as fact by conservatives — “Going Rogue” was a 400-page exercise in score-settling that identified, for Palin fans, everyone who ever did her wrong. And she knows that liberals despise her and will pick apart everything that goes out under her name. It was liberals, after all, who obsessed over the “death panel” claim, because for whatever reason they thought it was vitally important to prove that Palin was misleading people about what was in the health care bill.

At the same time, I think that the media’s indulgence of Palin’s strategy — which often results in pure stenography of press releases that may or may not have been written by her — is ridiculous, bordering on pathetic.

Obama really buttered them up in Cairo. He thanked them for everything from algebra to the pen, though he curiously failed to mention that they often throw people in prison for using it.

Sept. 14, on the ACORN scandal, in a column titled “Lefty Crooks Laugh at You”:

No wonder Charlie Rangel and so many people considered for jobs in the Obama administration didn’t pay their taxes — they know better.

Oct. 9, on the Nobel peace prize:

The committee clearly has cast itself into the dustbin of irrelevancy by making this move. People will joke about this for years.

Nov. 4, on the elections:

Obama and his political team are watching the results very carefully to see just how much power they have squandered in 12 short months. And they are considering just how imperiled their political agenda is now that skittish House Democrats have learned that Obama has no coattails unless he is in the race.

Nov. 9, on the health care vote:

[L]ike Gettysburg and the Confederacy, the vote will mark the beginning of the end for Pelosi and her doomed crew.