Baffled we were therefore to witness the same establishment mouthpieces that had previously slammed Sheen after his first appearance on The Alex Jones Show continue to erroneously report that Sheen's comments provoked a negative reaction from the American people.

The Slashfilm website stated, "The public attacked Sheen after asking questions about 9/11 on a national radio show. The general viewpoint being that he was just an actor, what right does he have to make such accusations."

The public did no such thing. The only people who attacked Sheen were rabid Neo-Con armchair columnists who threw their toys out of the pram and spit out vitriolic junior high mentality gossip about his private life.

The CNN poll which finished at 83% in support of Sheen and the popular website Bravo Charlie 9/11 go to prove that the majority of the American people were behind Sheen, just as an every increasing majority are against the anti-American agenda of Bush and his big government cronies.

The New York Post insulted over half of their readers when they called Sheen a part of the "9/11 gone-bonkers brigade," a Zogby poll showed half of New Yorkers believed the government were complicit in the attacks and 66% called for a new investigation.

Cheney was booed and Sheen was applauded, but the lapdog ministry of truth would try and flip reality 180 degrees in an attempt to offset their crumbling architecture of control and credibility.

President Bush's job approval rating slipped this week and stands at a new low of 33 percent approve, down from 36 percent two weeks ago and 39 percent in mid-March. A year ago this time, 47 percent approved and two years ago 50 percent approved (April 2004).

Approval among Republicans is below 70 percent for the first time of Bush's presidency. Two-thirds (66 percent) approve of Bush's job performance today, down almost 20 percentage points from this time last year when 84 percent of Republicans approved. Among Democrats, 11 percent approve today, while 14 percent approved last April.

"It seems clear that many Republicans, while they may still like and support George Bush, are growing uneasy with what may happen to their candidates - and the policies they support - in the November elections," comments Opinion Dynamics Chairman John Gorman.

"It's a reflection of Josh's thinking," the Republican said. "It's not a prediction that he's going to get it done."

A senior White House official denied that Mr. Bolten was considering such a step. "It's not the case," said the official, who was granted anonymity to get around the administration's policy of not commenting on personnel matters.

On another front, Republicans said that Tony Snow, a commentator for Fox News and a former speechwriter for Mr. Bush's father, was in negotiations for the job of White House press secretary. Mr. Snow would replace Scott McClellan, who announced Wednesday that he was resigning.

Mr. Bolten's thinking about Ms. Miers, however tentative, provided an insight into the scale of his ambitions for overhauling the White House staff and, should he proceed, could amount to a test of how far he would be able to go in bringing about change.

Ms. Miers, who was once Mr. Bush's personal lawyer, followed him from Texas to the White House. He nominated her to the Supreme Court last year, and brought her back into his inner circle when she withdrew after a brutal period of scrutiny and criticism.

Mr. Bolten is said by a number of Republicans in Washington to feel that Ms. Miers is indecisive, a weak manager and slow in moving vital paperwork through the system. She came to the White House in January 2001 as the staff secretary and then held one of Mr. Bolten's former jobs, deputy chief of staff for policy, before Mr. Bush appointed her as White House counsel in November 2004.

It was not clear whether Mr. Bolten was floating a trial balloon to gauge White House reaction to the idea, or whether he might have been intending to send a signal to Ms. Miers that he would like her to think about leaving on her own.

Moving Ms. Miers would be a strike at the heart of Mr. Bush's emotional bonds in the White House and would eliminate another Texan from the circle he has kept close to him in Washington. Republicans who talk regularly to senior West Wing advisers say the president has been unhappy and on edge about the staff changes that he nonetheless sees as necessary for revitalizing the West Wing.

Andrew H. Card Jr. stepped down as chief of staff last Friday. Karl Rove, the president's powerful political adviser who has been at his side since Mr. Bush entered politics, gave up day-to-day control over domestic policy on Wednesday, an announcement made shortly after Mr. McClellan stood next to Mr. Bush on the South Lawn and choked up as he announced his resignation.

Republicans close to the White House said Mr. Bush was the driver of the changes made so far, including the decision to ask Mr. Rove to focus primarily on the midterm elections.

"This is not Josh, this is Bush," said the Republican close to Mr. Bolten. "Bush is very good at using other people as a vehicle to get things done."

Republicans said Mr. Bolten has been focused on finding a new White House press secretary with good contacts in the Washington news media and a deep understanding of how they work.

Mr. Snow is the host of his own radio program and comes from the news operation that flashes from every television in the West Wing.

But before entering into job negotiations with the White House, Mr. Snow publicly joined other conservative critics of the administration.

In a column posted on his Web site that focused on the president's most recent State of the Union address, Mr. Snow in February called Mr. Bush's domestic policy agenda "listless" and portrayed his staff as burned out and unwilling to stand up to him.

"He inspires loyalty and confidence," Mr. Snow wrote in the column, titled "Thud!" that also included high praise for the president. "But over time, even the best burn out - or worse, lose their capacity to tell the boss, 'Sir, that idea stinks.' "

Associates of Mr. Snow, 50, said he has been weighing whether he and his family are up for the rigors of such a demanding job.

Mr. Snow had surgery for colon cancer last year and is awaiting an clearance from doctors before making a deal, according to people with knowledge of his deliberations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to upset private discussions at a sensitive time.

Mr. Snow's deliberations played out on Fox News on Thursday night, when be acknowledged the downside of the job. "You get a massive cut in pay," he said, adding that a press secretary can get treated "like a piñata," and that the job would cut into time with his children.

On the plus side, he said, "You become part of something that's very rare, which is an inner White House circle."

The White House has also been interested in a communications job for Dan Senor, the former spokesman for the United States in Iraq who is now a Republican consultant and Fox News analyst. But Republicans said Mr. Senor was cool to the idea and faced complications because of his wife, Campbell Brown, sometimes fills in as anchor of the "NBC Nightly News" and is the co-host of "Weekend Today."

Congress has been debating immigration reform for several months. One bill, approved by the U.S. House in December, calls for nearly 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. The fence proposal has angered Mexicans, with President Vicente Fox calling it "shameful."

Simcox said a half-dozen landowners along the Arizona-Mexico border have said they will allow fencing to be placed on their borderlands, and others in California, Texas and New Mexico have agreed to do so as well.

Surveyors and contractors have offered to help with the design and survey work, and Simcox said some have said they will provide heavy equipment for his Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. to build fencing.

Among those arrested and charged in connection with the employment of immigrants are seven current and former managers and two lower-level employees of the company, said U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby.

IFCO is an industry leader in the manufacture of wooden pallets, crates and containers. The criminal complaint involving IFCO charges the seven managers with conspiracy to transport, harbor, and employ illegal immigrants for private gain.

Federal authorities checked a sample of 5,800 IFCO employee records last year and found that 53 percent had faulty Social Security numbers, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said.

"That is, they were using Social Security numbers of people that were dead, of children or just different individuals that did not work at IFCO," ICE chief Julie Myers told CNN.

"The Social Security Administration had written IFCO over 13 times and told them, 'Listen, You have a problem. You have over a thousand employees that have faulty Social Security numbers. And we consider that to be a big problem,'" said Myers. "And IFCO did not do anything about it."

A yearlong investigation revealed that IFCO managers had induced illegal aliens to work there, telling some to doctor W-2 tax forms and others that no documentation was needed at all, Myers said.

As public concern over illegal immigration has grown in recent months, federal law enforcement officials have sought to tighten enforcement of immigration laws, through criminal charges against those who employ illegal aliens. Those charges would include money laundering, alien harboring, illegal alien employment and wire fraud.

"We are turning away from focusing only on civil liability," Myers told CNN. "It used to be in these cases that they amounted mainly to a slap on the wrist or a small civil fine. We're now focusing on criminal cases and bringing as many criminal charges as we can when we find employers that blatantly violate worksite enforcement laws."

Asked if senior managers knew or should have known about the alleged violations, Myers said, "There's no allegation of that at this time. It's certainly an ongoing investigation. I will tell you, though, that we are troubled by some of the things that we've seen at IFCO."

She said the company is cooperating with the investigation.

At his press conference, Chertoff said that under the Secure Borders Initiative, law enforcement officials would detect and catch those who cross the border illegally; detain and return them to their home countries; and target those already in the United States. Of particular importance are illegal immigrant smuggling operations, which have become a multibillion dollar business.

In its 2007 budget request, the Department of Homeland Security is asking Congress for more money to expand its documentation verification system. The abuse of the Social Security system and its documents are a key challenge, Chertoff said.

Industries relating to critical infrastructure -- like transportation, nuclear power plants and national defense -- are among those being targeted, Chertoff said.

IFCO Systems, with more than 40 offices across the U.S., issued a statement late Wednesday acknowledging the federal action.

"IFCO Systems is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to creating a workplace free of discrimination," the company said. "It is our policy to comply with all federal and state employee requirements."

But the IFCO statement did not directly address the charges.

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials today conducted employee background checks at a number of IFCO facilities across the country. We are cooperating fully with representatives from ICE and hope to have this matter resolved as soon as possible," the statement said.

ICE officials said agents made more than a thousand arrests in nearly 40 locations including Houston; Cincinnati; Phoenix; and Albany, New York.

The Dems' complicity shouldn't come as too much of a shock. The majority of leading Democrats in the Senate voted for Bush's war as well as all of its boondoggle funding along the way. Sure, they may loft a few soft criticisms at the president for his handling of the botched crusade (it wasn't mismanaged, it was illegitimate from the very start), but now that we are there, they say, we have to support our troops' mission. Whatever that mission is (or was), I haven't a clue. It surely wasn't about democracy, WMDs or bin Laden. If anything, it was just a covert (overt if you ask me) expansion of US Empire. No Democrats will expose, let alone oppose, this gross underlying premise of the "war on terror". No Democrats will resist the State sanctioned torture or killing of innocent civilians if they aren't punished at the polls for supporting it.

The only way to compel the Democrats to oppose this mess they helped make is to oppose them until they understand they are part of the problem. Not the solution. I have no illusions the Democrats will ever come around to our side of reality, especially if we are only sauntering around in circles on our allotted day of dissent and not voting against those who support this war on Election Day.

Until this begins to happen the situation in Iraq will only get worse.

Norman said he would ask prosecutors to bring charges of conspiracy to commit murder against the teens, ages 16 to 18. He said the state attorney general would handle the prosecution.

Deputies' interviews with the suspects indicated they planned to wear black trench coats and disable the school's camera system before starting the attack between noon and 1 p.m. Thursday, Norman said. The suspects apparently had been plotting since the beginning of the school year.

Officials at Riverton High School began investigating on Tuesday after learning that a threatening message had been posted on MySpace.com, he said.

The message discussed the significance of April 20, which is Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School attack in Colorado, in which two students wearing trench coats killed 13 people and committed suicide, the sheriff said.

"The message, it was brief, but it stated that there was going to be a shooting at the Riverton school and that people should wear bulletproof vests and flak jackets," Norman said.

School officials identified the student who posted the message and talked to several of his friends, Norman said.

But Riverton school district Superintendent David Walters said the significance of the threat didn't become clear until Wednesday night, after a woman in North Carolina who had chatted with one of the suspects on Myspace.com received a list of about a dozen potential victims, including at least one staff member. She notified authorities in her state, who contacted the sheriff's department, Norman said.

Norman said that the potential victims were popular students and that the suspects may have been bullied.

"I think there was probably some bullying, name calling, chastising," he said.

About 900 students in all grades go to school on the campus.

Riverton is an unincorporated area of about 600 people along what once was the famed Route 66 in southeast Kansas, near the Oklahoma and Missouri borders.