Senate Democratic Leader Mark Schauer posted a response to the recent censorship of progressive blogs in the Michigan Senate on Blogging for Michigan today. His diary has been crossposted here with permission.

I hadn't yet had the opportunity to post on Blogging for Michigan, but most of you already know that I think you do a wonderful job of discussing issues that are important to our state. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I firmly believe that blogs and the online community are an important part of sharing ideas, interacting with the public, and examining what we do as your elected officials. I've personally had constituents tell me that they find it useful to have access to this information and this type of dialogue.

Kyle Melinn had a nice article in the Lansing City Pulse this week about Rep. Mike Rogers' shifting position on the Iraq War. Let's take a look...

An AP/AOL News poll released this week showed only 31 percent are standing behind President George W. Bush’s suggested “troop surge” in Iraq. It’s a stunning change from just five years ago, when 68 percent of Americans thought the country was on the right track, a healthy majority gung-ho about Bush’s pending Iraqi invasion.

The tune is changing in Congress, as well. Lawmakers are no longer rolling over and cutting the president a blank check for whatever he believes is necessary in Iraq. The November elections and subsequent leadership change probably had a lot to do with that. And Rogers appears to be changing along with them.

This is a few days late, but still worth posting.
Here's the legislative summary for H.R. 4:

Current law, established under the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003, specifically prohibits the HHS Secretary from lobbying drug companies to lower prices, opting instead to rely on market forces to make these medicines affordable.

H.R. 4, in its most basic description, requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies in hopes of lowering drug prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries.

It also requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to submit a report every six months to the Committees on Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Oversight and Government Reform in the House and the Committee on Finance in the Senate on whether and to what extent negotiations have lowered the price of drugs for Medicare Part D beneficiaries.

Here's the legislative summary of the minimum wage bill, H.R. 2:

Currently, the federal minimum wage sits at $5.15 per hour. H.R. 2 raises the federal minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over 26 months. Sixty days after the President signs the bill into law, the federal minimum wage will rise to $5.85. A year following, the federal minimum wage will rise to $6.55. A year following that, the federal minimum wage will rise to $7.25. There are twenty-one states that have their state minimum wage below this level, and will be forced to comply with the new dollar amount.

For some history about the minimum wage, check out this Wikipedia entry.

America's minimum wage had its highest purchasing value ever in 1968, "when it was $1.60/hour ($9.12 in 2005 dollars)." Of course, we all know that the minimum wage hasn't had that much value in a long time -- the rate has been stuck at $5.15 since 1997, the longest stretch without an increase.

"I work for you. Together, we can continue making a difference, one family, one community at a time." –From Mike Rogers' campaign website

As the representative for Michigan's 8th congressional district, Mike Rogers is supposed to work for you. Trouble is, he also works for quite a few Political Action Committees, to the tune of over $662k during the 2005-2006 campaign cycle, in fact.

Originally posted on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Cross-posted on Michigan Liberal.

This morning Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was featured in the Livingston Daily Press & Argus, on the front page and above the fold, no less! Many thanks to Dan Meisler for featuring our humble young blog so prominently today, and on behalf of all our contributors, I would like to welcome  all the new readers.

In Meisler's article, Livingston County Republican Party Chairman Allan Filip had this to say about political blogs:

"To really play a large role, a lot of these things are going to have to become less venomous," he said.

Generally speaking, Filip said, political blogs play to the extreme fringes of their particular parties.

"I don't think necessarily it's anything that's changing people's hearts and minds," he said.

Cross-posted on Pohlitics and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

From the LSJ:

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers hopes the Iraq study group’s recommendation for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq will serve as a catalyst to unify the U.S. on the issue.

"That’s one of the things that has been hurting us overseas," the Republican congressman from Brighton said today.

Rogers said he hadn’t had time to read the entire 200-page report but had looked at the executive summary. He applauded the recommendation to begin dialogues with Iran and Syria, and said a gradual pullout made sense.

"An immediate withdrawal would absolutely cause chaos in the entire region," he said.

Mike thinks our country's disunity on the Iraq war has "been hurting us oversees," yet he's been feeding into that same atmosphere of disunity from the get-go.