Yup. Deep doo-doo for Saudi Arabia. My re-balancing calculations suggest the market will be over-supplied for at least 44 more weeks. Previously posted.

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MSNBC defends Al Franken. The New York Times does not:

Oh no, not Al Franken, too.

Before Thursday, I’d hoped Franken would run for president in 2020. A hugely gifted communicator with entertainment chops, he seemed well suited to take on Donald Trump, assuming the demagogic showman seeks re-election. A decade ago, when Franken first considered running for Senate, I spent a few days trailing him around Minnesota and found him serious, earnest and decent. As a lawmaker he’s been — in what now seems an awful irony — great on issues of sexual assault. He was behind one measure that made it easier for people who are sexually victimized while working for defense contractors to find justice and another ensuring that survivors don’t have to pay for their own rape kits. He hired feminist women, including Stephanie Schriock, who managed his 2008 campaign and is now president of Emily’s List. 

Sure, Franken made plenty of sexist jokes when he was with “Saturday Night Live,” but I thought he was one of the good guys. (I thought there were good guys.)

Then I saw the photo. On Thursday morning, Leeann Tweeden, a former model and radio news anchor in Los Angeles, accused Franken of harassing her during a 2006 U.S.O. tour to entertain American troops abroad. She wrote that he talked her into doing a sketch in which he  “mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.”This story alone might not have gotten Franken in much trouble — even if Tweeden had been able to get people to believe her, Franken could have explained it away as acting. But there’s a disgusting, indelible photograph from the cargo plane that took them home from Afghanistan. In it, Tweeden has fallen asleep in her flak jacket, and Franken, grinning at the camera, appears to grope her breasts. The picture was included on a commemorative CD sent to participants by the trip photographer. 

Tweeden wrote that when she saw it: “I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated.” No wonder; the picture is utterly dehumanizing. Soon after the news broke, Franken issued a terse apology, saying the photo “was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.” I read that and thought: You have to resign now. But then Franken put out another, better statement, saying he felt disgusted by his former self: “It’s obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture. And, what’s more, I can see how millions of other women would feel violated by it.”  

He asked for an ethics investigation into his conduct and for the opportunity to make things up to his female supporters. I found this persuasive and would like to see Franken redeem himself, but I still don’t think he can.

Asking for an ethics investigation? He's making a mockery of the system. He knows that an ethics investigation will last months, if not years; the outcome will be kept secret; and, two years for now, voters (and the press) will forget all about it. 

Fantasizing about raping Leslie Stahl? And that's just the tip of the Minnesota iceberg, it appears.