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Greg Sargent reports that Manchin, who has an "A"-rating from the NRA, told  Metro News radio’s Talkline in West Virginia on Thursday that though he's not ready to support an assault weapons ban,  "I’m working on a bill right now with other Senators, Democrats and Republicans. We’re trying to get it, and looking at a background check that basically says that if you’re going to be a gun owner, you should be able to pass a background check, to be able to get that. With exceptions."

The exceptions, he said, are, "Families, immediate family members, some sporting events that you’re going to — that if you’re just going to be using them at the sporting events. So we’re looking and talking to people with expertise. I’m working with the NRA, to be honest with you, and talking to them."

Manchin added that he thinks background checks should apply to gun shows as well: "I think that’s common sense. Why would a legitimate gun retail shop have to go through that, but then the unfair advantage for someone at a gun show doesn’t?"

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The speech’s claim to liberalism rests on at least three grounds. First, Obama spoke with unusual urgency about the threat of climate change — a pleasant surprise given his recent reticence on the topic. Second, he argued for a role for government in a mixed economy, including the need not to scrap Social Security or Medicare (though he also praised “initiative and enterprise,” and reiterated his call for “hard choices” to attack the deficit). And third, the president celebrated the role of collective action and organizing in American history, including by militant queer activists – making Obama’s the first inaugural address to acknowledge the existence of gay people.

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Speaking in Reno at the annual Weatherby International Hunting and Conservation Awards on Tuesday, LaPierre latched on to a line from Obama's speech in which the President argued: "We cannot afford to mistake absolutism for principle."

"Absolutes do exist, it's the basis of all civilization," said LaPierre. "Without those absolutes, Democracy decays into nothing more than two wolves and one lamb voting on who to eat for lunch."

"When 'absolutes' are abandoned for 'principles,' the U.S. Constitution becomes a blank slate for anyone's graffiti and our rights and freedoms are defaced," he argued.

“They are God-given freedoms. They belong to us in the United States of America as our birthright. No government gave them to us and no government can ever take them away," LaPierre said, adding: "We believe that we deserve and have every right to the same level of freedom that government leaders reserve for themselves -- to defend ourselves and our families with semi-automatic firearms technology."

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Now Ryan is trying to squirm out of the lasso in which the president captured him in his inaugural address Monday. "The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us,” Obama said with indignation. “They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great."

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Beyoncé closed yesterday's inauguration ceremony with one of the most impressive performances of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in memory -- comparable both in quality and in context to Whitney Houston's Gulf War-era Super Bowl performance.

But the Washingtonian reports that Beyoncé was lip-syncing the anthem. The pop singer even posted an Instagram photo of herself in a recording studio with the Marine Corps Band.

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Here are some of the reactions:

Stephen F. Hayes at the Weekly Standard:

President Barack Obama used his second inaugural address Monday to offer an aggressive, unapologetic defense of activist government and to call for a new spirit of unity even as he seeks to move the country even further left.
But in celebrating the power of the government to lead the nation forward, Obama breezed past the costs of an ever-growing public sector and made only passing mention of the country’s most urgent problem as he took the oath to lead it: debt.

John Hinderaker at the Powerline blog:

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The president joked about the first lady's chic haircut, saying, "And to address the most significant event of this weekend, I love her bangs," and the media went wild:

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In case you are worried that her hair got too much attention, don't worry -- her eyes made headlines too.

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Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM reports:

With [state Sen. Henry] Marsh’s absence, Senate Republicans in Richmond had one more vote than Senate Democrats and could push the measure through. The new redistricting map revises the districts created under the 2011 map and would take effect before the next state Senate elections in Virginia and would redraw district lines to maximize the number of safe GOP seats.

Currently, the state Senate is split evenly, 20-20, between Democrats and Republicans. But in the event of a tie, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, gets a vote, and Republicans were not sure he would have gone their way (a spokesman for Bolling told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the Republicans' move “is not something that he supported.”)

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The parties are a January tradition, where high-powered lobbying shops and law firms open up their offices for clients, legislators and officials, affording opportunities to renew ties and lay the groundwork for lobbying and deal-making. The gatherings in K Street and Pennsylvania Avenue suites offered catered buffets and even balcony views as the commander in chief's caravan rolled by, venues supplemented by high-priced hotel rooms, gala balls and invitation-only parties.

As the A-listers streamed in Monday, Washington's political world had already adapted to a scaled-back version of the festivities of four years ago, when more than 1.5 million people packed the National Mall. Lobbying shops got fewer ticket requests from corporate clients and office parties shrank to appeal to smaller crowds.

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The Twittersphere was quick to wonder whether Cantor was hoping for rhyming couplets, or hated poetry in general, has a grumpy resting face or perhaps was just cold:

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Even some ghosts of the White House past weighed in:

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Last year, Salon noted that novelty Romney and Obama prophylactics were spotted at a protest in New York. Romney rubbers were nowhere to be seen on the Mall today.

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One Today

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day: pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper— bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives— to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches 2
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs, buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways, the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

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Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution.  We affirm the promise of our democracy.  We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names.  What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.  For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.  The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.

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The presidential motorcade arrived shortly after 8:30 a.m. under crisp, cold skies outside the sanctuary. The president and first lady Michelle Obama emerged to pose briefly for photos with their daughters Sasha and Malia before entering the church. The first family sometimes attends Sunday worship at the church, which is across Lafayette Park from the White House.

Vice President Joe Biden and his family also were attending.

Meanwhile crowds were gathering at the National Mall to watch Obama take the oath of office later in the morning for his second term.

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Reuters reports:

David Plouffe, a senior adviser, said Obama would call on both parties to come together to resolve daunting second-term challenges like the budget, the need to raise the nation's borrowing limit and the Democrat's push for tighter gun laws and a legal path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

The president views the inauguration speech and the State of the Union speech to Congress on February 12 as "a package," Plouffe said, and would save details of his second-term agenda for the later speech.

And from the AP:

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But he’s never had a month like this last one. In January alone, over the final three weeks of his first term, the president faced down three of the most toxic forces in American politics -- call them the three Ns: the National Rifle Association, Norquist (as in Grover) and the neocons – and won crucial battles, if not the war.

On Jan. 2 he signed a deal that raised top tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, winning the first GOP votes for a tax hike since 1990, despite their solemn vow otherwise to Norquist.  On Jan. 7, he appointed former Sen. Chuck Hagel his Secretary of Defense despite once-fatal charges that he’s anti-Israel -- or worse, anti-Semitic -- from neocon bullies. On Jan. 16, he rallied the nation behind a gun control agenda and issued 23 “executive actions” that shouldn’t be controversial but are, thanks to the way the NRA has controlled gun politics in the last 20 years.

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So today we'll be raising a coupe full to the president and to Vice-President Joe Biden. And to Rosie on her publication (thanks for the drink!). And to you, our readers!

Cheers!

The Gerry Mandarin

Created by Rosie Schaap.

For one cocktail:

2 oz rye

1/4 oz. sweet Vermouth

The juice of one half of a small Mandarin orange

Two dashes Scrappy's celery bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a thick strip of Mandarin peel, from which the pith has been removed.

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