Politics

President Obama on Monday reaffirmed the United States’ defense commitment to Japan, calling the relationship the “linchpin” of security in the Far East.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda/ (KAZUHIRO NOGI - AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Appearing with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda after their bilateral meeting, Obama hailed the recent agreement to relocate 9,000 U.S. Marines off Okinawa to other bases in the Western Pacific, saying the move will help allay concerns of Japanese residents of the island.

Obama pledged that the move will not compromise the long-time alliance at a time when the United States is rebalancing its commitment to Asia to counter China’s influence and renewed nuclear threats from North Korea.

This evening, Jimmy Kimmel will take a shot at skewering President Obama, media and celebs in the audience and, very likely, the Secret Service and GSA at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But taking a look back at years past gives a quick reminder of what the hot issues and big targets of the moment were.

2011: Seth Meyers hosted last year and was tough on the early GOP presidential primary field (especially Donald Trump). Osama bin Laden was still the butt of jokes; remember, it wasn’t until the next evening that it was revealed he’d been killed by SEAL Team Six agents in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Memorable joke: “The president and Joe Biden were not invited to the royal wedding, and when Biden found out he immediately said to the president: You, me, Wedding Crashers 2. I’ll book us two Amtrak tickets to London.”

Presiden Obama stands with veterans as he speaks in the White House Rose Garden last year. (Andrew Harrer - BLOOMBERG) FORT STEWART, Ga.— Surrounded by thousands of uniformed members of the Army’s Third Infantry Division, President Obama Friday signed an executive order cracking down on for-profit colleges that prey on service members and veterans to collect tuition dollars without providing meaningful education in return.

Joined by wife Michelle Obama on a grassy parade field in front of the infantry division’s headquarters building on a sunny, warm Georgia day, Obama told soldiers that some for-profit schools swindle veterans, harassing them with repeated phone calls and e-mails and promising them job placement and counseling without delivering.

He told of one college recruiter, who visited a barracks at Camp Lejeune and signed up service members suffering from brain injuries.

“That’s appalling. That’s disgraceful. That should never happen in America,” he said.

The executive order, he said, will “make life a whole lot more secure for you and your families and our veterans and whole lot tougher for those who try to prey on you.”

The visit came as Obama concluded a week of courting young voters and their parents, touring university campuses to pressure Congress to pass a measure that would prevent student loan rates from doubling on July 1.

Is it too soon to joke about the U.S. Secret Service sex scandal?

Not if you’re late-night host Jimmy Fallon and President Obama is your guest.

In an interview with Obama at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill on Tuesday, Fallon joked with the president that he had been “having the best time hanging out with the Secret Service” over the past two days.

President Obama sits with Jimmy Fallon during a commercial break as he participates in a taping of the “Late Night” with Jimmy Fallon, Tuesday, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C. (Carolyn Kaster - AP) Obama was a bit more serious in his response.

“The Secret Service, these guys are incredible,” Obama said, according to the White House press pool report on the interview. “They protect me, they protect our girls. A couple of knuckleheads shouldn’t detract from what they do. What they were thinking, I don’t know. That’s why they’re not there anymore.”

The full interview will appear on Fallon’s “Late Night” show on NBC on Tuesday night.

So far, 12 Secret Service employees and 11 military service members have been implicated in the misconduct ahead of Obama’s trip to Cartagena, Colombia, two weeks ago. They are accused of heavy drinking, visits to strip clubs and payments to prostitutes.

Six of the Secret Service personnel have been dismissed from the agency, including two supervisors. Another has been cleared of serious misconduct but could face administrative action, while the other five remain on administrative leave. The military members have had their security clearances revoked.

On the final day of his trip to Cartagena, for an international economic summit, Obama said at a news conference he would be “angry” if the allegations against the men are true.

In one of the least-shocking political developments of 2012, four major environmental groups simultaneously endorsed President Obama’s reelection bid Wednesday.

President Obama at a campaign fundraiser at the University of Vermont last mon th. The leaders of the Clean Water Action Fund, Environment America, League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club announced in a conference call with reporters that they would turn their members out in force to support Obama this fall.

League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski described the presidential election as ”a clear choice between someone who’s going to be a champion and someone who’s best buddies with Big Oil and climate deniers.”

All four groups endorsed Obama in 2008, but this is the first time they have done it concert. This was the earliest point in the election cycle that three of the groups had ever backed a presidential candidate, though the League of Conservation Voters endorsed Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in January 2004 in his unsuccessful effort to unseat President George W. Bush.

The environmental leaders noted that they did not embrace all of Obama’s policies—the Sierra Club, for example, has questioned the extent to which the administration supports domestic natural gas development—but praised his work on promoting renewable energy and denying a federal permit to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

“Clearly there is a lot of work to do, but this president has made historic progress in breaking our dependence on [fossil fuel] energy,” said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune.