White House photo. George W. Bush named national security advisor Condoleezza Rice to replace Colin Powell as secretary of state.Washington Post A few days later,Condoleezza Rice entered the hospital for minor surgery of an undisclosed nature.ReutersBush spared two Thanksgiving turkeys from death.Reuters “By virtue of an unconditional presidential pardon, they are safe from harm,” he said.White House The turkeys, named Biscuits and Gravy, were chosen by an Internet poll, beating out Patience and Fortitude.White HouseTexas prisoner Anthony Fuentes was executed.Houston Chronicle A buck was captured and euthanized after running through Chicago’s O’Hare AirportABC 7 Chicago, and a Texas website was …

The Bush Administration reversed itself and declared that non-Iraqis captured fighting in Iraq are not protected by the Geneva Conventions; such prisoners, it was reported, have already been transferred out of Iraq in recent months and could be taken to Egypt or Saudi Arabia where torture is more common than it is in the United States.ScotsmanFour British citizens who were held without charges in Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, filed suit against Donald Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials, and claimed that they were tortured while in custody. The Pentagon responded that the men were “enemy combatants” and thus had no right …

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a scathing report on the CIA’s unfounded, unjustified, and unreasonable claims about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction; the report was oddly silent, however, about the Bush Administration’s well-documented and apparently successful campaign to intimidate the CIA into coming up with justifications for the President’s fraudulent case for the invasion.New York TimesSenator Trent Lott was outraged by the CIA’s “totally ridiculous, uncalled for, and counterproductive” redactions of the report and called for an independent commission to oversee the classification of government information.New York TimesJapan’s defense ministry said that it will issue its annual defense whitepaper …

President George W. Bush held a prime-time press conference and refused several times to apologize or accept responsibility for his government’s failure to prevent the September 11 attacks; theNew York Timespresident defended his decision to conquer Iraq and said that the Iraqis were “deceptive at hiding things. We knew they were hiding things. A country that hides things is a country that is afraid of getting caught. And that was part of our calculation.”New York TimesBush also said that “freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face …

A federal appeals court ordered President Bush to release Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was arrested last year in Chicago and has been held since then as an enemy combatant. The court ruled that “the president, acting alone, possesses no inherent constitutional authority to detain American citizens seized within the United States, away from the zone of combat, as enemy combatants.”New York TimesA class-action lawsuit was filed against the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security accusing the agencies of illegally using a national crime database to enforce civil immigration laws.New York TimesFederal investigators found videotapes of guards …

Congress approved a major Medicare bill that permits the elderly to buy prescription drug coverage; few citizens were able to understand the plan, though the health-care industry appeared to be well pleased by it. The legislation was endorsed by AARP, which nowadays makes a great deal of money selling health-care products to its members, and consumer advocates denounced it as “a classic election-year giveaway.” Some experts predicted a revolt among the elderly once the plan takes effect in 2006 and the true costs of reform become clear.New York TimesGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California proposed cutbacks in therapy for the mentally …

North Korea admitted that it has resumed work on its nuclear arms-program; the United States retaliated by formally withdrawing from a 1994 arms-control agreement, which will immediately stop annual shipments of 500,000 tons of fuel oil to North Korea. Bush Administration officials accused Pakistan of giving the North Koreans nuclear technology in exchange for missiles to use on India. Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s ceremonial head of state, claimed that his government was ready to hold talks if the United States would end its “hostile policy.” A diplomat from the North told one from the South that a “wind from …

After a heavy lobbying campaign by the electric industry, President George W. Bush broke a campaign promise and decided not to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, humiliating Christie Whitman, his EPA administrator, and effectively killing the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change. The President said that he was worried about an energy crisis and that he wasn’t entirely convinced that global warming was real. OPEC decided to cut production by 4 percent in order to keep oil prices high. North and South Korea exchanged mail for the first time since the Korean War. Apparently offended by President Bush’s comments last week …