The Situation Room: President Trump abruptly called off a strike on Iran with just 10 minutes to spare on Thursday because 150 people would be killed, he said yesterday.

  The attack was to be in retaliation for Iran shooting down an unarmed American drone.

  “I thought about it for a second and I said, ‘You know what? They shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it,’” Trump told NBC’sChuck Todd, “And here we are, sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after I said go ahead. And I didn’t like it.”

  It’s probably the most dangerous diplomatic minefield Trump has walked since he became President. His decision to strike Iran showed decisiveness and calling it off demonstrated humanitarian restraint.

  It also sowed confusion. Trump got tough with Iran about its nuclear treaty with the West and stirred confrontation. Gregg Jaffe writes in The Washington Postthat, “The net result is a president who has proved adept at triggering foreign policy crises, which have piled up during his more than two years in office, but who seems unable to defuse them.”

  Trump had previously said he thought Iran’s action might have been a mistake. The NY Times reports that Iranian officials are saying one of their tactical commanders showed too much aggression in deciding to shoot down the drone.

  The paper also says that one of the voices of restraint was Fox Newshost Tucker Carlson, who told the President that attacking Iran would be “crazy” and might cost him re-election.

  Iran says the drone was clearly in their air space and they also chose not to shoot down a surveillance plane carrying 35 people that was also over their territory.

  Amir Ali Hajizadeh, a commander with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps wrote on Twitter that, “We did not do this. Because our goal was to warn Americans.”

The Supremes:In a quick rise to significance the Supreme Court’s newest member, legal conservative Brett Kavanaugh, wrote the majority opinion for a decision throwing out the conviction of a black man tried six times for murder without a single black person on the juries.

  The only dissenters were Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

  Kavanaugh wrote that the Mississippi prosecutor Doug Evans had studiously eliminated black jurors from the trials in which Curtis Flowers was accused of killing four people inside a furniture store. Kavanaugh wrote that Evans had violated the Constitution’s dictate that, “Equal justice under law requires a criminal trial free of racial discrimination in the jury selection process.”

  The court’s newest justice said,  “The numbers speak loudly. Over the course of the first four trials, there were 36 black prospective jurors against whom the State could have exercised a peremptory strike. The State tried to strike all 36.”

  Flowers was convicted in the sixth trial and has spent 22 years on death row.

Give Us Your Tired: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is expected to begin a major operation across the country tomorrow in which they round up 2,000 illegal immigrants who have been served with deportation orders. The raids are to take place in at least 10 major cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New Orleans.

Familiar Complaint:Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll says in a New York magazine cover story that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store dressing room 20 years ago. 

  Carroll writes that, “The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips.” She writes that, “He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights.”

  Trump said in a statement that he has “never met this person in my life.”  He said, “She is trying to sell a new book—that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section.”

The News Roundup:Wisconsin’s Democratic governor vetoed four abortion bills Friday that were passed by a Republican legislature. “Everyone should have access to quality, affordable health care, and that includes reproductive health care,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. “Politicians shouldn’t be in the business of interfering with decisions made between patients and their health care providers.” — Missouri refused to renew the operating license of the state’s only abortion clinic. The clinic remains open under court order. — A Philadelphia refinery blew up and caught fire, sending a giant fireball into the sky. People in New Jersey felt the blast. Gas prices will go up, somewhere. 

The Obit Page:Gary Burrell, a co-founder Garmin, the company that put global positioning technology in the hands of everyday people, died at home in Spring Hill, Kansas at age 81.

  Garmin GPS locators have made it possible for pilots, boaters and even joggers to know exactly where they are on earth, what direction they are headed, and how fast they are going. 

Price Reduced:Fifteen years ago retiring Baby Boomers sunk fortunes into building five and six bedroom “dream” homes in the Sunbelt, The Wall Street Journalreports. Now, the paper says, the Boomers can’t sell them. Few people want or need that much house. Places like Asheville, NC, and Scottsdale, Ariz. have a glut of multi-million-dollar homes on the market as Boomers head for the nursing home.

  We’d like to feel sorry for these people, but we don’t. 

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