AND SOME ENCOURAGEMENT FROM EUROPE - AT 9:11 P.M. ET: 

June 7 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy led pro-business parties in defeating socialists in European Parliament elections, lessening the pressure for more stimulus measures to fight the deepest recession since World War II.

Amid signs the economic slump is bottoming out, the continent’s top two leaders escaped the drubbing in European Union-wide elections that was handed to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and socialists in smaller countries including Spain, Austria, Portugal, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats and allied Christian Social Union racked up 38 percent of the German vote, beating the rival Social Democrats with 20.8 percent, according to preliminary results. Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement scored 28 percent, beating the Socialists with 16.8 percent.

COMMENT:  Not bad, considering that it's Europe.  Now if we can only get a pro-American vote next year in an American election.

June 7, 2009