Accenture contract ruling...

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reports:
A circuit court judge ruled yesterday that the state Elections Board's director did not have the authority to sign a $13.9 million contract with the global outsourcing firm Accenture to create a statewide voter registration list, but nevertheless upheld the contract on the grounds that the board retroactively approved the contract - more than a month after the contract was challenged legally.

What's even weirder about the ruling is that it upholds a contract that neither Accenture nor the Elections Board seem intent on honoring. Accenture already has called for renegotiation of the terms of the agreement to push back deadlines the company can't meet, increase payments from the state for some work, and eliminate several contractual obligations that the company says are no longer necessary. The Elections Board's director agrees the contract needs to be rewritten and says he won't rule out paying Accenture more.

Wal-Mart outsourcing to BadgerCare

Wisconsin reports Wal-Mart employees "topped the list of BadgerCare recipients, a state health care program for low-income residents.

Wal-Mart has the most employees and families on BadgerCare, the state Medicaid program for low-income working families with children, costing you at least $1.8 million a year. Wal-Mart's total Wisconsin health care subsidy for state and federal taxpayers is $4.75 million a year, according to recent news reports.

Wal-Mart doesn't want you to know how many of its workers are forced to rely on public assistance for health care. The mega-store is fighting a new bill in Minnesota which would create a public list of companies whose workers are enrolled in MinnesotaCare and other government-funded health care programs. Last year, Minnesota spent $270.2 million on MinnesotaCare, the state program for people without access to affordable health care. This led lawmakers to wonder which corporations have the most workers enrolled in the state-funded program.

"If it's true what people say, that big multinational companies are outsourcing health care to taxpayers, then it would be good to have a handle on which ones," says MN state Rep. Sheldon Johnson.

Wisconsin Citizen Action believes we need to fundamentally change our health care system to one which provides quality, affordable health care for all. "Wal-Mart’s profits last year were $10.3 billion. So, why weren’t they offering affordable health benefits to their employees?"

Lies and Freedom Fries...

Congressman Walter Jones, the Republican from North Carolina who invented the term Freedom Fries and was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, now feels that the US went to war "with no justification".

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."

French fries protester regrets war jibe but you have to go to the British press to learn the details...

The White Rose Society (German, Die Weiße Rose) was a World War II-era resistance movement in Germany calling for nonviolent resistance against the Nazi regime.
www.WhiteRoseSociety.org is revisiting the idea under the current US administration.