Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is taking a larger stab with its apparel lines than in the past and has joined up with teen sensation Miley Cyrus for a new value-priced clothing line -- naturally. Cyrus, star of Disney's Hannah Montana, has hooked up with designer Max Azria for the new line.

The new junior clothing selection will include girls' tops, pants, t-shirts and shows -- all priced at under $20. Wal-Mart shoppers will see the new items in all Wal-Mart stores and at www.walmart.com sometime in August. If history holds, those same clothes will be falling apart from a few washing cycles sometime in December. Sorry, couldn't resist there. Quite a few relatives have told me about clothes from Wal-Mart literally falling apart after three months or so.

Welcome to the 73rd installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions, and just a bit of everything else when it comes to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

This week, I'll be taking a look at whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s (NYSE: WMT) earlier decision to bring its store managers together and tell them about the possible repercussions of a Democratic president violated federal election laws. Since presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has now chosen veteran politician Joe Biden as his running mate, is Wal-Mart chewing its corporate fingernails off?

The Democratic National Convention begins today, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of it. Did Wal-Mart violate federal campaign election laws by having an "education session" with the leaders (and in turn, employees) of its national store locations? Let's see what national labor unions think. Read on.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) can't seem to find a strategy and stick to it -- at least in its U.S. market.

The company's recent quarterly results release featured CEO Lee Scott saying that the world's largest retailer would be returning to its roots and lowering prices over the summer to goose sales. Didn't Wal-Mart, just last year, say that it wanted to take the focus away from lower prices (while still maintaining them) and lure higher-ticket, higher-margin shoppers into stores?

Did that strategy not work, or did the company not give it enough time? Here we are in May 2007 and sales at the retailer haven't picked up nor have profits gone up appreciably. So when all else fails, Wal-Mart returns to is ultra-discounting strategy. How droll.

Wal-Mart's latest profit expectations were met by cost-cutting measures at its stores, international sales growth and its Sam's Club division. Organic profit growth did not materialize at its U.S. store base, the biggest part of its business.

So, with that in mind, I'm guessing that the company is partially abandoning hope of finding profits through higher margins at its Wal-Mart stores and is looking to make that up elsewhere (outside its core business).

Does that sound a little odd? It does to mine.

Wal-Mart Stores,Inc.'s(NYSE:WMT) new advertising campaign caught quite a few eyes yesterday here at BloggingStocks. So after reading about what Wal-Mart wants to do over the course of the last 18 hours or so, I had to call my predictions of the past as "coming to fruition" a bit. That prediction is that Wal-Mart needed to publicly stand up and defend itself or lose customer confidence -- and shopping dollars -- over time.

I've said for years that Wal-Mart needed to face its fierce critics daily and head-on without hiding its head in the sand as it was constantly attacked. I'm not in favor of many things Wal-Mart does, nor am I in favor of the hateful tactics of many of its critics. Judging the situation objectively is the only way to come to an opinion that is worth anything.

Well, Wal-Mart is starting a new ad campaign that has a strategy of answering hard questions in advertising instead of the normal progression of pushing "low prices" and products. What will Wal-Mart be advertising? That it is a good employer that does a lot of good for many communities.

While that statement can be true or false based on the perspective, it's good to see Wal-Mart take any road to defending itself against attacks. The question is -- will consumers buy it? Have Wal-Mart's detractors done too much damage for the retailer to ever recover in the public eye? Without details, Wal-Mart, your new ad campaign falls flat. What does "good employer" mean? Specific definitions are needed here.

An activist group that represents smaller farmers has sued Wal-Mart, saying that Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) has incorrectly labeled several products as organic. This lawsuit was reported in The Washington Post today as the complaint was presented to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Called "Cornucopia," the group sent its complaint to the National Organic Program, a division of the USDA, and in it stated that at several Wal-Mart stores the retailer had incorrectly labeled Stonyfield Farm's all-natural yogurt as organic.

Stonyfield Farm is one of the largest purveyors of all-natural yogurt in the world, but has struggled under the load of growing organic popularity and has had to make adjustments to its business model to skill keep natural ingredients in the product. Now it is no longer considered "100% organic."

The lawsuit filed by Cornucopia also said that several Wal-Mart stores had included non-organic products such as tofu, egg-roll wrappers, and juice in a cooler designated for organic produce -- which could cause customer confusion with all-organic products. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman responded in an email that "it's hard to take their claims seriously" and said that one of the group's founders, Mark Kastel, had worked for a Wal-Mart rival.

But so what? Wal-Mart needs to determine if the claims are valid and address them if they are -- but stating something that has no relevance to the lawsuit's claim does nothing for nobody. Wal-Mart may be correct here, as may be Cornucopia. If the lawsuit cannot prove the claims it brings up in the lawsuit, then Wal-Mart can pounce. Not until then, though.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) is at it again. The retailer has expanded its new low-price generic prescription drug program to another 12 states, making it 27 states in total now where the retailer has lowered prices on generic prescription drugs to the tune of 20% and in some cases even 40%.

Before long, Wal-Mart may have all 50 U.S. states covered in this new program as competitors like Target Corp (NYSE:TGT) and even Publix try to catch up and reassure customers that Wal-Mart is not going to be the only game in town that will be offering drastically lowered prices on generic prescription drugs. The new states where the program is now offered after this latest expansion include Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota and Virginia. The states that were already covered include Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Vermont.

This new expansion coming so quick after the last expansion to 14 states got me thinking -- what is Wal-Mart's strategy with pushing this program ahead so rapidly right ahead of the holiday shopping season? There is probably a marked reason for that, and in addition, it shows that there are many millions of Americans that are dependent on prescription drugs for all kinds of ailments, something Wal-Mart is wanting to fully capitalize on -- and why shouldn't they?

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) shares closed up to end the trading week at $48.46, an increase of $0.14 and 0.29% from Thursday's close. WMT shares were mixed in trading this week with some barely-registered moves in day-to-day trading as the shares retreated from the magical $50 share price amount that is ore of a psychological high-water mark than anything.

This week saw some interesting developments in Wal-Mart land, as the retailer's strategy to unleash its much-cheaper prescription drug plan to the entire state of Florida as well as start it immediately instead of in 2007 caused grocery retailer Publix to make a similar announcement on the heels of Target's announcement that it too would follow Wal-Mart's lead.

But, the issue of non-paid worktime from current and former employees came crumbling down on Wal-Mart as well, as Thursday's decision from a Pennsylvania judge may cause a judgment in the amount of over $60 million for the retailer, as there are 167,000 current and former employees carried by the class-action suit.

Here are some WMT highlights from this past week:

Supermarket chain Publix follows Wal-Mart's lead, lower prescription drug prices

Will Wal-Mart's new drug price plan cause pain for CVS next year?

India's Bharti close to choosing a retailer partner for Indian-based retail joint venture

Wal-Mart and Target -- who's copying who?

Wal-Mart ended the trading day at $48.44, a decline of $0.88 or 1.78% from last Friday's close. With the Down continuing to flirt with its all-time record high set almost seven years ago, WMT shares have been riding that same way as the ending-day trading price per share nears a close of above $50 per share in what hasn't happened in nearly a year for the world's largest retailer. But -- today, at least -- shares we down almost 2%.

Wal-Mart's foray into cutting costs to the hilt by focusing its American workforce into the part-time camp (read: little to no benefits given) at the same time it will offer lower-premium -- but higher-deductible -- health plans to new employees starting work in 2007 send signals that Wal-Mart wants the cheapest labor force possible while still thinking it can serve the customer better. I don't buy it -- too much standard corporate rhetoric here. Do you buy it?

Wal-Mart does, however, continue to seed the farms of politics in many states, with California leading that list. Will the retailer reporting same-store sales for September rising 1.8%, Wal-Mart's on the hot seat in every possible area right now -- from sales growth predictions to labor relations. What else is new?

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) shares closed the week out at $49.32, up $0.49 or 0.98% from Thursday's close and up from $48.31 during Monday's session. Wal-Mart this week announced that it would be changing the structure of its health care employee offerings starting with new hires in January 2007.

Of course, there are both sides to this story, with supporters saying that this move -- which lowers premiums paid but raises deductibles -- will cut down on unneeded visits and procedures, while others believe Wal-Mart is taking a page from the Bush administration and is wanting to have employees become more responsible for paying their own health insurance in a way.

In a billion-dollar announcement most likely, Apple and Wal-Mart were rumored on Thursday to be in a possible partnership where Wal-Mart would sell "digital coupons" for use at Apple's online iTunes music and movie stores. Of course, in exchange for this distribution outlet, Apple would pay Wal-Mart for each "referral" if you will.

This comes on the heels of the world's biggest online digital media seller (Apple) and the world's largest retailer (Wal-Mart) coming to blows over each other's stance in the future of movie and media distribution. Wal-Mart has physical distribution and Apple has online/virtual distribution. Ah, the old and new meet at last, eh?

Some Wal-Mart stories from this week:

Apple in talks with Wal-Mart to offer digital download coupons

Wal-Mart's foreign factories get failing grades

Wal-Mart changes health care offering for 2007 employees

Wal-Mart sees protesters at Mexican stores

Wal-Mart's blue state blues

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) does take some shareholder suggestions to heart, although many of them are quashed by the board. Wal-Mart's board must now be elected by a majority vote instead of a plurality vote, something that has been brought up several times at annual shareholder meetings.

Wal-Mart also said that plurality voting will continue to be used in contested elections when the quantity of director candidates surpasses the number of available positions, which makes sense and is not a change from previous policy at all.

Why make the change to the voting and election procedure now for Wal-Mart? It seems an odd time, but perhaps there is something underway soon with the Wal-Mart board that makes the announcement of a majority-elect board some kind of advantage for the world's largest retailer.

Rob Walton, Wal-Mart's board chairman, said, "We believe that due to recent changes in Delaware law, the majority vote standard is now in the best interests of the company and its shareholders." This is most likely true, although the specific changes to state law where Wal-Mart is officially headquartered would most likely apply to other public companies with registered headquarters located in Delaware.

This column from the Seacoast Online newspaper in Portsmouth, New Hampshire starts off with a rather intriguing quote that is not heard too often: "I know certain people who may disown me for saying this, and I recognize it's not the most cutting-edge rebellious kind of statement one can make these days, but the truth is, I love Wal-Mart." Pretty bold words, there, but not uncommon. I seem to hear about half-n-half on the train that is Wal-Mart. Some people I talk to completely bash Wal-Mart in every possible way, yet others praise Wal-Mart for finally bringing competition to over-priced areas and "low prices" is always thrown in for good measure.

This article brings up a point I also hear consistently about Wal-Mart -- that is, in this age of time-starved daily routines and gas-starved motorists, many people don't want to travel to many different destinations to buy anything and everything they need.