During the latter stages of the Bush presidency, the outgoing president sought to put a positive spin on his ultimate legacy. In fact, throughout his tumultuous years in office, the outgoing president insisted that as time passed people would judge his accomplishments more positively.

Any chance for such a development seemingly went out the window over the last ten days with the emergence of the so-called torture memos.

Loss of Moral Bearings

With the release of the paper trail authorizing the brutal interrogation of terror suspects, President Barack Obama has opened the door on an administration that gave little thought to the long-term ramifications of its actions.

Leaving the option for prosecution to the attorney general’s office, Obama has clearly differentiated the issue into two categories: those who approved the harsh interrogation tactics and those who carried out the program at the behest of the Bush administration.

The release of the materials has most of the former administration scrambling. In an effort to dissuade the growing criticism, Bush Vice President Dick Cheney has attacked Obama for releasing the Justice Department memos maintaining that the methods helped protect the nation.

Three men currently seem to be most at risk of prosecution because of their role in formulating the legal decisions behind the interrogation methods. The three men are former Justice Department officials Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury.

Bybee is currently a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while Yoo is a professor at the University of California-Berkeley. The professor has already drawn a great deal of scrutiny on campus with some calling for the firing of the tenured professor.

While the men will clearly take the position they were simply doing their jobs, legal experts have suggested that the men could face charges that include conspiracy to commit felonies including torture. Newspaper reports also indicate that Bybee also could face impeachment in Congress.

New Report

Adding to the issue for the former administration is a new declassified Congressional report. That report offers detailed evidence that the “military’s use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects was approved at high levels of the Bush administration.”

This report centers upon the interrogations carried out by the military as opposed to those conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency. Offering an extremely damning portrait of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others, the report rejects claims that Pentagon policies played no role in the abusive treatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

According to the Senate investigation, Rumsfeld approved 15 interrogation techniques to be utilized at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The report then tracks Rumsfeld’s authorization through a United States military special-operations lawyer in Afghanistan to the interrogation officer in charge at Abu Ghraib.

This led directly to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez authorizing the use of stress positions, “sleep management” and military dogs to prey upon detainees’ fears.

Not too surprisingly, former Secretary Rumsfeld has dismissed the report calling the findings unfounded allegations.

Time to Right Some Wrongs

While Republicans continue to fight any further scrutiny of these sordid matters, Democratic lawmakers and human rights groups are demanding hearings. These groups want to see punishment for those involved in sanctioning brutal interrogations that were tantamount to torture.

While the focus currently centers upon Yoo, Bigbee and Bradbury and the potential consequences for their actions, there now has to be a call to review the cases of some punished individuals.

If the president continues to maintain that those CIA officers that carried out the harsh interrogation techniques are not to be prosecuted, then it would seem only right to re-examine the military hearings related to the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Clearly, the actions of the military personnel punished for their behavior at the famous prison were not, as the administration contended at the time, the actions of a few rogue individuals.

Janis Karpinski, the commander of Abu Ghraib, who was demoted for her lack of oversight regarding the abuse should have her case re-examined. And the seven soldiers who were convicted in courts martial and sentenced to federal prison should also have their cases opened in light of these revelations.

It is clearly way too early to judge the Obama presidency despite the onslaught of criticism coming from former VP Dick Cheney.

But if our former president was in hope that time was on his side, that his presidency would be judged more positively with the passage of time, it is now clear that time will only cast further clouds on his administration.

Given his authorization to torture prisoners, his name is now being mentioned in the same sentences as Pol Pot considered one of the most evil men of all time.

Today’s job market is extremely tough – so we will forgive those graduates who set aside their green philosophy to consider any available work. But if green is your color and your mantra, then you are not one who will forgo your commitment to a greener world just because of a tough job market.

At the same time, environmentally-conscious graduates must be careful to investigate the full corporate philosophy of a company to be sure that the public persona is in fact commensurate with that corporation’s business practices. If green is in fact your color, you don’t want to be fooled into taking a job at a business better known for its “greenwashing” practices.

Greenwashing

“Greenwashing” is the term used to describe the misleading practice of publicly claiming to be working on being better stewards of the environment even as some of a company’s real time practices act to pollute. In other words, these company’s public relations campaigns tend to be more about rhetoric than a real green commitment.

That said, it is important to recognize this is not about illegal behavior. It is just that within their industrial practices these companies contaminate either the air, the ground or water by discharging pollutants, some that are potentially very toxic.

At the same time that their industrial practices are less than stellar, these companies may fool the general public by virtue of using a large fleet of hybrid vehicles or harnessing significant amounts of energy from the sun through solar panels. They may also give off a green vibe by donating to environmental non-profit causes.

Therefore, “greenwashing” is about style over substance.

Measuring Greenwashing

Those graduates with a green philosophy currently out looking for jobs can turn to the web site 24/7 Wall St for a review of the top ten “greenwashers.” The list represents a number of corporate giants and traverses across several different fields.

The method used to determine the top ten “greenwashers” by the web site included a look at each corporation’s public documents including advertising, press releases, and websites. In addition, they took a look at each company’s lobbying practices.

To determine the pollution effects, 24/7 Wall St. queried the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program’s public online database. The database consists of the annual collected EPA data regarding the release and transfer of specific toxic chemicals and the waste management activities at specific industrial locations.

Using the database, 24/7 Wall St. “identified the companies which released the largest amount of toxic chemicals according to 27 different industrial codes identified by the EPA.”

Along with the TRI program, 24/7 Wall St. used other databases including the Political Economy Research Institute’s Toxic 100 index. In addition, they took a look at case law and settlements related to environmental issues as well as a company’s response to environmental concerns raised by agencies and the public.

If Green Is Your Color

So if green is in fact your color, so much so that it will impact your career choice, then you will want to think twice about applying for work at one of 24/7 Wall St.’s ten “greenwashing” giants.

College Cost Reduction Act “Soft” on Low-Income Students

The College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 passed the House and Senate, but is likely to be hung up with negotiations before it hits President Bush’s desk. Bush has threatened to veto the new measure due to the flimsiness of the bill in regards to low-income students. Many politicians have talked up the bill’s success, but much of this is marketing rhetoric.

As it currently stands, the College Cost Reduction Act is more oriented to post-college individuals, less focused on current students and those most challenged to get a college degree.

The biggest winners are the Pell Grant recipients—they will likely receive a significant boost in funds, although still far short of the funds once available only a few decades ago.

The bill cuts major subsidies to student loan lenders that offer the FFEL program. This action seems almost a reprimand for the past months’ worth of controversy brought on by unscrupulous and greedy lenders.

Components of the CCR Act:

• Pell Grants will be increased from $4,050 to $4,900 and a maximum $5,200 by 2011.
• Students pursuing a teaching profession stand to earn full tuition compensation in exchange for service in underrepresented schools. This takes calculated aim at the problem of inadequate teachers in poor schools.
• Forgiveness of student loans owned by public service professionals, including law enforcement, firemen, nurses, and even librarians after 10 years.
• $500 million in new investments to minority and underrepresented institutions.
• Student loan interest cuts for need-based loans.
• Federal student loan maximum borrowing limits to be increased.

“Drug Provisions” Remain Uncertain

Part of the proposed amendment to the Higher Education Act still faces an uncertain future. Currently any student convicted of a drug offense is summarily denied government aid regardless of how trivial the offense. Some sources suggest that the number of students affected by this controversial contingency is well over 100,000.

The FAFSA form requires applicants to answer the “drug conviction” question.

This “drug offense” measure was zipped onto the Higher Education Act of 1965 as the Aid Elimination Provision of 1998, also called the Souder Amendment.

With the unfolding of the current fiasco between student loan providers and college financial aid offices, one student loan company has seen the fallout as a marketing opportunity. MRU holdings is using aggressive marketing reminding students of the recent fraud. The WSJ reports:

One of the MRU ads called the relationships between schools and lenders a “racket.” Another said more pointedly, “Before you choose, ask your financial aid office about the lenders on their preferred lender list. Ask if any of these lenders offered kickbacks or incentives to get on the list.”

MyRichUncle is offering a discount on their federally backed Stafford loans and PLUS loans with the hopes of later upselling students on more expensive private student loans.

A Government and Private Sector Conflict

Over the last few months, Big Student Loan has been under fire. Almost simultaneously two big guns aimed their sights on the industry: first, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in February, launched further inquiry into the alleged improper goings-on between some college financial aid administrators and student loan lenders. Innuendo had continued to swirl for some time alleging paybacks, stock options, and pay for inclusion deals for the infamous preferred lender lists published by schools.

Also in February, Senator Ted Kennedy had amassed reports of similar near scandals thick enough to make a novel. His solution? Write a bill—the Student Loan Sunshine Act—that could federally regulate the lender-school relationship, now clearly spun out of control.

Senate Cuts Deep Into Big Student Loan

Late Thursday, the Senate voted 78-18 to a slew of new cutbacks aimed at Big Student Loan, almost as punishment for the last few months of bad press and just plain bad business. Senators voted to make repayment of federal student loans forgivable for “public service employees,” like law enforcement and public school teachers, and to raise the amount for Pell Grant recipients up to “$5100 by next year, and $5400 by 2011,” read a New York Times article (“Senate Approves Major Overhaul of the Federal Student Aid Program,” Schemo). The major change most consumers will see is a reduction in their student loan interest rates over the next few years, and the FFELP lenders will likely feel the sting of sweeping profit cuts, the subsidies they earn from the feds. Seems that most Senators (and their constituents) think that enough is enough.

The few critics in the crowd argued that these newest reforms were a cleverly disguised ploy to undo the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). Senator Kennedy applauded the moves, arguing that students and parents have been increasingly burdened with the high cost of continually inflated tuition and costly student loan repayments, including the FFELs.

Colleges That Choose Affordability Over Money-Making

Well outside the political sphere other developments of a student loan variety also took shape. New England’s prestigious, Amherst College, officially did away with institutional student loans and replaced them, 100%, with scholarships. The move is a measured step by AC to make their education more affordable for all students. Only two other schools, reported the Boston Herald, have taken such bold steps–Princeton University and Davidson College.