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Tuesday, March 4, 2025
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Economy

producer prices and Ford factory worker

(Photo: REUTERS)

New orders for U.S. factory goods ticked up in February after six straight months of declines, an unexpected development in an otherwise weakened sector.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday new orders for manufactured goods increased 0.2 percent, the largest gain since July after a strong dollar and weaker global demand pounded orders. The new numbers come after a revised 0.7 percent drop in January.

Orders excluding transportation increased 0.8 percent, which is the biggest rise in 8 months, while shipments of factory goods increased 0.7 percent after four straight months of declines.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast factory orders to decrease by 0.5 percent in February after a reported 0.2 percent drop in January.

The Commerce Department also said orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft — which is widely viewed as a measure of business confidence and spending plans — fell 1.1 percent rather than the 1.4 percent drop initially reported last month.

Slower growth in China and Europe has also negatively impacted factory orders, and a report from the Institute for Supply Management released on Wednesday showed manufacturing activity at a near two-year low in March.

Despite the latest unexpected gain in factory orders, it will likely take far more time before the sector, which accounts for 12 percent of the economy, actually shows a solid rebound. Unfilled orders at factories fell 0.5 percent in February, declining for a third straight month.

Shipments of non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, which is used to calculate business equipment spending in the gross domestic product report, were revised up to show a 0.3 percent increase in February rather than the previously reported 0.2 percent rise.

New orders for U.S. factory goods ticked

US

crystal-cathedral-megachurch-founder-robert-schuller

FILE 1997: Rev. Robert H. Schuller delivers one of seven candlelight Christmas Eve services from the Crystal Cathedral pulpit in Garden Grove, Calif. (AP)reg

The Rev. Robert Schuller, the Southern California televangelist, author and Crystal Cathedral megachurch founder, has died at the age of 88. Rev. Schuller was known for his upbeat messages on faith and redemption before his spiritual empire crumbled in his waning years.

Carol Schuller, his daughter, said he died early Thursday at a care facility in Artesia, as a result of a 2013 diagnoses, when he learned he had a tumor in his esophagus that had spread to his lymph nodes.

Shortly after beginning treatment, the charismatic televangelist watched his church collapse amid a disastrous leadership transition. The circuit saw devastating declines in ratings, member viewership and donations, which forced the ministry to file for bankruptcy. The glass-paned Crystal Cathedral was ultimately sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange in 2011.

Further, Rev. Schuller lost a legal battle a year later filed to collect more than $5 million from his former ministry for claims of copyright infringement and breach of contract.

Schuller’s evangelical Protestant ministry, part of the Reformed Church in America, was the result of decades of work by he and his late wife, Arvella, an organist. The two started a ministry in 1955 with $500 when he began preaching from the roof of a concession stand at a drive-in movie theater southeast of Los Angeles.

The church’s motto — “Come as you are in the family car” — aimed to attract spiritually starved Americans that made up the emerging Southern California auto culture and the suburban boom of post-World War II era.

In 1980, he built the iconic glass-and-steel, 2,800-seat Crystal Cathedral to boost his already-thriving TV ministry. At its peak, in the 1990s, the program had 20 million viewers in about 180 countries.

What separated Rev. Schuller from other televangelists was his message, which lacked the judgmental condemnation heard by many other preachers in the circuit. Some Christian fundamentalists attacked him for humanist rhetoric that suggested the need for personal repentance of sin was not needed. Of course, his friendship with former President Bill Clinton didn’t help him in conservative circles, either.

In response to a congregational backlash over his relationship with Clinton, Schuller gave a sermon on tolerance.

“I do let people know how great their sins and miseries are,” he said in a 1992 radio interview. “I don’t do that by standing in a pulpit and telling them they’re sinners. …The way I do it is ask questions. Are you happy? Do you have problems, what are they? So then I come across as somebody who cares about them.”

Still, Rev. Schuller boasted admirers that ranged from fellow evangelist Billy Graham to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

In 2006, Schuller’s only son, 51-year-old Robert A. Schuller, took the reigns as senior pastor at the church, despite a father-son succession being nearly unheard of in the Reformed Church in America. But the Schullers considered the church a “family business” and officials say the decision was sanctioned by the national church.

But it wasn’t long until the empire began to crumble, leading to family feud that began in fall of 2008. His father had removed him from the “Hour of Power” broadcasts, and he quit as senior pastor a few weeks later.

Sheila Schuller Coleman, one of Schuller’s daughters, took over as the church’s top administrator, and a stable of preachers, including her and her father, handled preaching duties on the “Hour of Power.”

Then, she also left, taking many congregants with her to start her own new ministry.

In 2010, when Crystal Cathedral ministries filed for bankruptcy, they cited more than $43 million in debt. Worse still, bankruptcy filings indicated the ministry’s organization was paying a large amount in tax-exempt housing allowances to Schuller family members and insiders. While that is legal, it raised concerns among vendors and other creditors who had gone unpaid for months before and during the bankruptcy.

In 2012, Schuller and his wife quit the board of directors in a dispute over copyright infringement and breach of contract, while their grandson, Bobby Schuller, took over the remaining congregation and founded a new church. Shortly after, Bobby Schuller also took over the “Hour of Power,” but began broadcasting from a new location.

Robert Harold Schuller was born in Alton, Iowa, in 1926, and was ordained by the Reformed Church in America in 1950. He was pastor of Ivanhoe Reformed Church in Chicago from 1950 to 1955 before moving to California.

Besides his son, Schuller and his wife, Arvella, had four daughters, Sheila, Jeanne, Carol and Gretchen. Arvella Schuller died Feb. 11, 2014, after a brief illness.

The Rev. Robert Schuller, the Southern California

Economy

trade-gap-reuters

Reporting on the U.S. trade deficit, otherwise known as the trade gap, from the U.S. Commerce Department. (Photo: Reuters)

The Commerce Department said on Thursday the U.S. trade deficit narrowed 16.9 percent to $35.4 billion, or its lowest level since October 2009. January’s disappointing report on the trade balance was revised to $42.7 billion from a previously reported $41.8 billion.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the trade deficit slipping to $41.2 billion. When adjusted for inflation, the deficit narrowed to $50.8 billion in February from $54.6 billion the prior month.

It is unclear whether the report with rebuff the latest round of weak economic data released this week, which forced economists to consider further lowering their first-quarter growth estimates. The consensus estimates currently range between an abysmal 0.9 and 1.4 percent annualized growth rate. The government adjusted its data last week to show the economy grew at a 2.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter.

A now-resolved labor dispute, a relatively stronger U.S. dollar (USDUSD), increased oil prices and weaker global demand all contributed to a narrowing trade gap most economists view as temporary. Thus, while the smaller trade deficit is good news for gross domestic product (GDP), it does little to nothing to change consensus views that economic growth slowed sharply in the first quarter.

Imports plunged 4.4 percent to $221.7 billion in February, which is the lowest since April 2011, while imports of petroleum products were the lowest since September 2004.

Exports fell 1.6 percent to $186.2 billion in February, or the smallest since October 2012. Exports to Canada and Mexico – the two main U.S. trading partners – also tanked in February, while exports to China plunged 8.9 percent. Exports to the European Union were unchanged.

Imports from China plummeted 18.1 percent, forcing the politically charged U.S.-China trade deficit down 21.2 percent to $22.5 billion.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday the

Economy

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly, though recent data still suggest the labor market and economic growth have stalled.

(Highlights: Weekly jobless claims fall by 20,000 to 268,000 for the week ended March 28, despite economists’ expectations of a gain to 285,000 amid a softening labor market.)

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell by 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 268,000 for the week ended March 28, according to the Labor Department report released Thursday. Weekly jobless claims for the prior week were revised to show 6,000 more applications received than previously reported, explaining how and why the report took Wall Street by surprise when initially released.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 285,000 last week, though the data could be revised next week to more closely reflect expectations.

Yet, despite the Labor Department analysts claiming there were no unusual factors in the state-level data, the results are the first since the department made revisions to the model it uses to adjust the claims data for to deal with so-called “seasonal fluctuations.”

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims, which is considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 14,750 to 285,500 last week. Numbers above 300,000 claims, were it has been for several weeks, indicate souring labor market conditions.

The latest claims report has no bearing on March’s employment report as it falls outside the survey period.

Nonfarm payrolls are expected to increase by 245,000 last month, with the unemployment rate holding steady at a more than 6-1/2 year low of 5.5 percent, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

Although the anticipated increase would be below February’s 295,000 jobs, March would mark the 13th straight month of employment growth above 200,000 – the longest stretch since 1994.

However, the government’s monthly numbers do not comport with the overall economic picture, as the ADP National Employment Report released Wednesday showed that private payrolls gains in March were the smallest since January 2014. Further, low-paying service sector jobs dominated private sector job creation, while higher-paying construction and manufacturing took grave hits.

In fact, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) gauge of manufacturing activity — also released Wednesday — barely reflected growth, and the employment index actually teetered on contraction.

Thursday’s claims report showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell 88,000 to 2.33 million in the week ended March 21. That was the lowest reading since December 2000.

In the first report since the Labor

World

al-shabaab-attacks-garissa-university-college

Soldiers guard Garissa University College after it was stormed by masked gunmen. (Photo: Nation Media/Barcroft Media)

At least 15 are dead and 60 are injured after Somali Islamic terror group al-Shabaab stormed Garissa University College shortly after 5:00 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. Wednesday Eastern Time). A spokesman for the terror group told the BBC that it attacked the school because “it’s on Muslim land colonized by non-Muslims.”

 

Kenyan Cabinet Interior Secretary C.S. Nkaissery said in a statement that “280 of the 815 students have been accounted for,” making the total number of missing 535.

“We sorted people out and released the Muslims,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s military operations spokesman. “There are many dead bodies of Christians inside the building. We are also holding many Christians alive. Fighting still goes on inside the college.”

Abass Gulett, head of the Red Cross in Kenya, said fighting was ongoing as security forces tried to retake some university blocks from the gunmen.

“We have evacuated about 30 casualties, most of them with bullet wounds,” Arnolda Shiundu, a spokesman for the Kenya Red Cross (KRC). “Four are in a critical state and Kenya defence forces personnel have airlifted three victims, including two soldiers, to Nairobi.”

The selective targeting of Christians mirrors the recent attack on a museum in Tunisia, during which ISIS-affiliated Islamic terrorists asked patrons whether they were muslim or not. The patterns stands in contrast to the indiscriminate murder of any and all civilians, likely due to recent bad publicity turning no small percentage of public opinion against the groups.

“If you were a Christian you were shot on the spot,” Collins Wetangula, the vice chairman of the student union said. “With each blast of the gun I thought I was going to die. The next thing, we saw people in military uniform through the window of the back of our rooms who identified themselves as the Kenyan military.”

Al-Shabaab has increased attacks in Kenya since its troops were deployed in Somalia in 2011 to confront the al-Qaida affiliate. African Union troops have driven al-Shabaab from nearly all major high-populated areas in Kenya, but the terrorists vowed retribution and have responded with a series of terror attacks in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda, another country contributing troops.

Last month, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for attacks in the county of Mandera on the Somali border in which twelve people died. Four of them died in an attack on the convoy of Mandera County Governor Ali Roba.

At least 15 are dead and 60

Policy

Religious Freedom Rally

Protesters rally for religious freedom in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on Friday. Rallies took place nationwide to protest the mandate that some religious organizations cover the cost of contraception.

When describing their view of government and public policy, libertarians and constitutional conservatives sometimes use a variation of this phrase: “Not everything that’s illegal is immoral, and not everything that’s immoral should be illegal.”

To put this in tangible terms, consider the fact that the EPA has penalized people who build ponds on their own property. Yet the property owners obviously haven’t engaged in any behavior that’s wrong. Indeed, it would be far more accurate to accuse the bureaucrats of behaving immorally. And Walter Williams, among others, has argued that “decent people should not obey immoral laws.”

By contrast, there are many things that we should consider immoral, such as cheating on a significant other by patronizing a prostitute, but we would argue that it’s not a proper role for government to criminalize caddish actions or victimless behavior.

This distinction between immoral and illegal is appropriate as we consider the nationwide controversy about what’s happened in Indiana.

Joining the federal government and many other states, politicians in Indiana recently passed a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” that’s based on the notion that there should be some limits to government actions that hinder the free exercise of religion.

But “some limits” is not the same as “no limits.” These laws all allow government to interfere if there is a “compelling state interest.” To cite an obvious example, a crazy environmentalist couple couldn’t sacrifice their child to appease Gaia.

Since all this sounds very reasonable, why has the adoption of the Indiana law turned into a huge kerfuffle?

The answer is simple. The Hoosier statute has become a proxy for the fight over freedom of association, which also implies a right to engage in private discrimination.

Here’s some of what my colleague Roger Pilon wrote on the topic.

We find those principles in the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence…: freedom and equality. Rightly understood, they hold that we’re all born free, with equal rights to remain free. That means—to cut to the chase—that we may associate with anyone who wishes to associate with us; but we are equally free to decline to associate with others, for any reason, good or bad, or no reason at all. That right to discriminate is the very essence of freedom.

He then points out that the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, errs in a Washington Post column by seeking to use coercion to criminalize private immorality.

Cook turns those principles on their head. He says religious freedom bills “rationalize injustice” by, for example, allowing a baker to decline to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. He would compel the baker to accept that request, by force of law. That’s the very opposite of the freedom of association—the right to be left alone—that the nation was founded on. …I’m as offended as Cook is by that kind of discrimination. But I’m even more offended by the belief that we can force people to conform to our values when they’re asking simply to be left alone to enjoy their right to pursue their values. And precisely there is the source of Cook’s confusion, his conflation of rights and values, two very different moral notions.

Roger’s key point is that some types of discrimination are wrong, in some cases grossly immoral, but that doesn’t justify intervention by the state.

Which means a baker or florist who doesn’t want to cater a gay wedding should have the freedom to reject that business. That business owner may be doing something immoral and intolerant, just as a bigot who doesn’t want to do business with minorities is behaving reprehensibly, but people making their own decision with their own property shouldn’t be forced to adhere to other people’s values.

Writing for National Review, Deroy Murdock asks whether there are any limits to government coercion of private behavior.

The only identifiable victim of Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act is the First Amendment’s Freedom of Association clause. Like Joan of Arc, it has been burned at the stake. …What if you are an atheist who really objects to gay marriage? Must you still bake cakes for gay weddings, or will pro-shariah Muslim bakers be the only ones who can walk into court and ask to be excused from doing so? …Do we respect the Junior League’s right to choose to remain a female-only group, as it has been since 1901, or must they now accept male members? … Do we respect a gay baker’s right to choose not to bake a cake for the Westboro Baptist Church with icing that reads God Hates Fags? …Do we respect a black jazz band’s choice not to perform at a Ku Klux Klan chapter’s “Negro Minstrel Show”?

Deroy poses these questions, because there are big implications depending on how people answer.

…it is crucial to remember that behind each of these scenarios lies something deadly serious: a gun. Government equals force. Its ultimate authority stems from its ability to use coercion or blunt force to deprive lawbreakers of their freedom. …So, the real question in each of these cases is: Do you support the government’s use of coercive police power — up to and including fines, arrest by armed police officers, and imprisonment — because you reject a woman’s right to choose not to bake a cake for a gay couple?

Here’s his bottom line.

In the public sector, the government must administer equal justice under the law and treat all Americans equally. …The private sector, such as it is, is something different. Private individuals on private property should be free to associate with whom and without whom they wish. Just because someone runs a business or is part of a private group or organization does not mean that she surrenders her rights or becomes a mere appendage of government. At least that’s what the First Amendment says — such as it is. Freed of most restraints against government action and populated by citizens increasingly oblivious to this nation’s founding principles, America is slouching into tyranny. Little by little. Day by day. This is incredibly depressing. And to see gay people lead this charge into bondage may be the saddest sight of all.

What’s both ironic and confusing about this issue is that government generally has been the source of discrimination and oppression against disfavored groups.

For a long time, government criminalized gay relationships. Heck, such laws are still on the books in some places, though thankfully they’re no longer enforced (though the thugs in Iran and similar places obviously haven’t taken this step in societal evolution).

And don’t forget that the infamous Jim Crow laws were government-imposed mandates, as Nick Gillespie explains for Reason.

From a libertarian perspective, belief in the freedom of association generally trumps belief in anti-discrimination actions by the state. …it’s typically the state (whether at the local, state, or federal) that historically was doing most of the discriminating. Jim Crow was ushered in by the Supreme Court’s vile “separate but equal” decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld a Louisiana state law barring railroad companies from selling first-class tickets to black customers. When businesses in the segregated South attempted to treat customers equally (often a good business strategy), they were typically hemmed in by specific laws preventing such things or by de facto laws enforced through brute force by various “citizen’s councils” and terror groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (which often included politicians and law enforcement). It was government at all levels, not local businesses, that disenfranchised blacks for decades.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner addresses the issue, pointing out that the cultural left now wants to coerce the traditional right.

On one side is the CEO of the world’s largest company, the president of the United States and a growing chunk of the Fortune 500. On the other side is a solo wedding photographer in New Mexico, a 70-year-old grandma florist in Washington and a few bakers. One side wants the state to conscript the religious businesswomen and men into participating in ceremonies that violate their beliefs. The other side wants to make it possible for religious people to live their own lives according to their consciences. …an emboldened and litigious cultural Left, unsated by its recent culture war victories, [is] trying now to conscript the defeated soldiers at gunpoint. …Tolerance isn’t the goal. Religious conservatives must atone for their heretical views with acts of contrition: Bake me a cake, photograph my wedding, pay for my abortion and my contraception. In Georgia, a Catholic school employed a gay teacher. When he announced he was marrying a man, the school said this violated the expectations of public behavior they demand of their teachers. They fired him. Now the Obama administration is coming after the school.

All of this is very frustrating for principled libertarians.

There are many gay libertarians, but they don’t want to coerce others into baking cakes or taking photos. They just want to live freely without excessive government coercion.

And there also are many libertarians who are traditional Christians, but they have no desire to oppress other people or to obtain coerced approval. They just want to live freely without excessive government coercion.

Unfortunately, libertarians are the exception. There are lots of other people in the world who think they should be able to impose their values on others. Oh, well, I never claimed it was easy to be libertarian.

What’s both ironic and confusing about this

Opinion

mike-pence-signing-religious-freedom-restoration-act

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2015 is constitutionally infirm and legally troublesome.

The circuitous constitutional route that brought about this statute began in 1990 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment may not be used as a defense to violating the general laws of the land. In Employment Division v. Smith, a small group of Native Americans who had been fired from their jobs because drug tests revealed their use of peyote made applications for unemployment compensation, which the State of Oregon denied.

They appealed and claimed that their use of peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, could not be the basis for firing them from their jobs because it was a sacrament in their religion. The court ruled that the adherents to this religion had the same obligation to obey the laws that prohibit the use of peyote as all persons do.

In response to that decision, and wanting to show an interest in an issue of constitutional liberty for a change, Congress enacted the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), a clumsy effort to overturn the Employment Division v. Smith ruling.

That statute basically required the federal government and the states to permit the “my religion made me do it” defense wherever there was an arguable claim that a general law of the land conflicted with a genuine religious practice or belief. The statute also mandated an exacting due process standard, called strict scrutiny, that the courts are to apply to the states’ enforcement of their laws when addressing an alleged clash between a general law applicable to everyone and a free exercise of religion claim.

Four years later, when the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Antonio, Texas, claimed the protection of RFRA to justify an exemption to a local zoning law so that an old church could be expanded, and lost, he appealed, and the case made its way to the Supreme Court. In Boerne v. Flores (1997), the court found RFRA to be unconstitutional. It ruled that Congress had effectively redefined the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause and mandated the judicial standards to be used when assessing claims made under it, and that that definition and mandate are not properly Congress’ to make. Because Congress’ powers under the Fourteenth Amendment are limited to remedying state failures to protect fundamental liberties and do not extend to defining the meaning or parameters of constitutional provisions, the court invalidated RFRA.

Thus, it is clear that one may not violate any law, state or federal, and escape the consequences of that violation on the basis that one’s religious views compelled the disobedience. Were this not the case, then nothing would prevent animal sacrifice, the use of mind-altering drugs, and even racial or gender or national origin discrimination in public accommodations and housing — all allegedly based on one’s claimed religious views. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in housing and public accommodations based upon race, gender, religion, beliefs or national origin, and quite properly permits no religious-based defense.

In response to the invalidation of RFRA, many states enacted their own form of RFRA, and most states added sexual orientation to the litany of prohibited bases for discrimination in public accommodations and housing. Indiana has not added the prohibition on discrimination based on sexual orientation; yet its own RFRA statute, signed into law last week, provides a “my religion made me do it” defense to allegations of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Hence the belief and fear that the Indiana statute is an affirmative attempt to provide a lawful basis for such discrimination. Such an attempt would surely run afoul of the Supreme Court’s invalidation of a Colorado constitutional provision that purported to do the same in Romer v. Evans (1996).

The legal issues attendant upon the judicial enforcement of this Indiana statute are enormously complex. They would amount to judges determining the centrality and sincerity of a person’s claimed religious practices to the core teachings of his religion. This type of determination by judges could only come about by an inquiry unknown in American jurisprudence (“Is this really taught by your church?” “Do you really believe this?” “How is your refusal to sell goods or services to this person central to your religious beliefs?”) and prohibited by the Free Exercise Clause, which the courts have held bars such judicial inquiries.

In the days before the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the late Sen. Barry Goldwater offered a neutral, non-racist common-law argument based on morality and property rights against that landmark legislation. He articulated the view that a seller of goods or services or real estate has a natural right to decide to whom he wishes to sell, free from government commands.

Goldwater paraphrased Thomas Jefferson, who argued that the only moral commercial transaction is one truly voluntary on the part of the buyer and the seller. That argument has an attractive leave-me-alone appeal to it; yet, the public policy of the nation since 1964 has unambiguously rejected it. Today in America, if you operate a public accommodation or deal in real estate, you cannot choose your customers; they choose you. This Indiana statute is arguably an effort to bring back the pre-1964 days with respect to sexual orientation.

Because discrimination based on sexual orientation is not prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Indiana and all other states are free to prohibit it or to look the other way in the face of it. But they are not free to encourage it or to make it lawful.

Judge Andrew Napolitano has written nine books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty.

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act of

Opinion

mike-pence-press-conference

Mike Pence holds a press conference discussing the backMike Pence holds a press conference discussing the backlash against the RFRA bill on March 31, 2015.

This week, in response to yet another heinous law meant to discriminate against LGBT fellow humans, Honey Maid tweeted, “We believe love is always welcome.” And it illustrated it with a picture of graham crackers nibbled into the shape of Indiana.

This Buckeye sure did love that.

Now, the Teddy Grahams company has been up to this no-good kind of lovin’ for a while. For a whole year, even.

Last March, the company launched an ad campaign titled “This Is Wholesome.” The video — with 8,119,352 YouTube views as of 4:51 p.m. EDT on Wednesday — opened with a scene of two daddies cuddling their newborn. Before anyone could even scream “Emma Jean, get in here and look at this!” the screen segued to images of a biracial couple and their three gorgeous children. They were all smiling, too. We’re talking coronary time for anyone who still thinks Jesus was as pale as the governor of Indiana, minus the snow-white hair.

Honey Maid was hit hard with angry tweets and hate letters. So the company printed all of them and hired two female artists — communists, probably — to do something pretty with them. The artists rolled the sheets of paper into cylinders and glue gunned them to spell the word “Love.” Then they surrounded it with a giant cloud made from tubes of positive mail, which outnumbered the hate 10-to-1.

Honey Maid made a video of that, too, with 4,205,002 YouTube views, last time I checked.

I mention all of this because I can’t believe no one in the Republican-controlled Indiana legislature remembered the Honey Maid thing. As an Ohioan and fellow Midwesterner who has visited many a Hoosier over the years, I know for a fact that graham crackers are as much a part of our mutual culinary tradition as beefsteak tomatoes and anything deep-fried at a county fair.

Surely, somebody had to know that pretending to pass a bill that would defend religion in no need of defending while empowering bigots to refuse service to the LGBT community was going to end up as a tweet with graham crackers nibbled into the shape of their beloved Indiana.

Not to mention the national outrage and ridicule that shoved Indiana Gov. Mike Pence into a spotlight of his own making the minute he claimed this was all a misunderstanding and the media’s fault.

“We’ve got a perception problem here,” he said.

“This was a perception problem,” he said again.

“I understand the perception of this has gone far afield of what the law really is.”

And those journalists? Jesus help them, because Pence sure wants nothing to do with ’em.

“Ridiculous,” he said. “Irresponsible.” Even “sloppy,” which, OK, having spent two decades in a newsroom, I’ll give him that. But still.

On Tuesday, The Indianapolis Star — published in Indianapolis, I guess we should stress — ran a Page One editorial under a black-and-white banner reading, “FIX THIS NOW.”

An excerpt: “The consequences will only get worse if our state leaders delay in fixing the deep mess created. Half steps will not be enough. Half steps will not undo the damage.

“Only bold action — action that sends an unmistakable message to the world that our state will not tolerate discrimination against any of its citizens — will be enough to reverse the damage.

“Gov. Mike Pence and the General Assembly need to enact a state law to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, education and public accommodations on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”

In the meantime, the number of companies, celebrities and regular American citizens vowing to boycott Indiana grows with every day of delay.

I’ve been hearing from a number of readers who say it’s not fair to punish businesses that would never dream of discriminating against customers for their sexual orientation. They object to attempts to depict all Hoosiers as anti-gay.

Lots of good people live in Indiana, they say.

My response: You’re right. It’s not fair.

How does it feel?

The only reason the LGBT community has been on the receiving end of so much unfair treatment for so long is that too many good people think fighting injustice is somebody else’s job.

Pick up the phone, dear Hoosiers. Or sit down at your keyboards and write to your legislators and governor. Better yet, pull on your shoes and go make some noise.

Now, I know you don’t need this Buckeye telling you what to do.

Prove it.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and an essayist for Parade magazine. She is the author of two books, including “…and His Lovely Wife,” which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate.

To those who object to attempts to

Economy

Institute for Supply Management readings for U.S. manufacturing activity. (Photo: Reuters)

U.S. manufacturers reported activity in March slowed for the fifth consecutive month, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Institute for Supply Management. The weak reading is the latest sign the economy has lost whatever momentum it may have had at the start of 2015.

The ISM’s manufacturing purchasing managers index fell to 51.5 in March from 52.9 in February, just above a reading indicating economic contraction. The index has fallen each month since hitting 57.9 in October.

Still, as was the case following the weak ADP private sector jobs report released earlier Wednesday, which showed manufacturing losing 1,000 jobs this month, some remain optimistic.

“We’re well-positioned for a better quarter and year ahead,” said Bradley Holcomb, who oversees the ISM factory survey, citing shrinking customer inventories that should lead to increased orders later in the year. “Since some issues are temporary, chances are good we will see a rebound like happened last year.”

But economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected the latest PMI to fall to only 52.5, and any reading below 50 signals contraction. The latest round of weak economic data this week may just force economists to further lower their first-quarter growth estimates, which currently range between an abysmal 0.9 and 1.4 percent annualized growth rate. Meanwhile, the government adjusted its data last week to show the economy grew at a 2.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter.

Now, the worse-than-expected ISM survey numbers further support those downward revisions. Of the 18 industries in the March survey, just meager 10 reported growth.

“There is now little doubt that manufacturing downshifted in the first quarter,” wrote Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, in a research note.

In its report, the ISM continued to blame the weather, as well as higher health-care costs and the stronger dollar.

By far, the biggest disappointment in the ISM report was the drop in the employment index, which fell to 50.0 in March from 51.4 in February, teetering on contraction.

The weak ADP National Employment Report and the ISM survey’s employment numbers raised additional concerns about Friday’s employment report.

“Even considering the ADP data’s poor track record of predicting the [Bureau of Labor Statistics} data, we now think there is downside risk to our forecast for the BLS data that will be released on Friday,” wrote economists at J.P. Morgan.

They continue to forecast an increase of 250,000 jobs last month.

The new orders index dropped to 51.8 from 52.5 in February, and the exports index declined to 47.5 from 48.5, contracting again for three months in a row. The ISM production index was little changed at 53.8 from 53.7.

The ISM’s prices paid index rose to 39.0 last month from 35.0 in February, and the last expansionary reading for the subindex was only 53.5 back in October.

U.S. manufacturers aren’t letting their inventories grow too fast. The ISM inventory index fell to 51.5 from 52.5.

U.S. manufacturing activity in March slowed for

Economy

jobs-fair-weekly-jobs-report

An unemployed American speaks to a recruiter at a jobs fair. (Photo: Mark Ralston AFP/Getty)

The U.S. private sector added just 189,000 jobs in March, far below the 225,000 jobs economists expected, according to payroll processor ADP. The number represents a stark drop from the upwardly revised 214,000 jobs created the month prior.

“March job gains came in under 200,000 for the first time since January of last year,” said Carlos Rodriguez, president and chief executive officer of ADP. “The decline was centered in the largest companies, those with 1000 or more employees.”

The ADP National Employment Report is the latest indicator that U.S. economic growth is cooling more than economists previously anticipated. U.S. consumer spending, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of all economic activity barely rose in February, up 0.1 percent without adjusting for inflation as household savings hit their highest level in more than two years.

Payrolls for businesses with 49 or fewer employees increased by 108,000 jobs in March, up from 103,000 in February. Employment among companies with 50-499 employees increased by 62,000 jobs, up from 57,000 the previous month. Employment at large companies – those with 500 or more employees – decreased from February adding 19,000 jobs, down sharply from 53,000. Companies with 500-999 employees added 7,000 jobs, down from February’s 11,000. Companies with over 1,000 employees added 12,000 jobs, down from 43,000 the previous month.

However, particularly concerning wage growth, a sector-by-sector look at the numbers indicate the U.S. economy continues to create quantity over quality, though the amount of jobs is still far below the 250,000 needed simply to keep pace with population increases.

Goods-producing employment added just 5,000 jobs in March, down from the 22,000 jobs created in February, while the decent-paying construction industry added just 17,000 jobs, down from 28,000 last month.

Manufacturing, also a higher-paying sector, actually lost 1,000 jobs in March after adding only 2,000 in February.

As usual, the low-paying service-providing sector led the way in employment gains, adding 184,000 jobs in March, though it too was down from 192,000 in February.

The ADP report showed that professional/business services contributed 40,000 jobs in March, up from February’s 34,000. Expansion in trade/transportation/utilities grew by 25,000, a decline from February’s 32,000, and 16,000 new jobs added in financial activities also represents a drop from last month’s 19,000.

“Job growth took a step back in March,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics said. “The fallout from the collapse in oil prices and surge in value of the dollar is hitting the job market. Despite the slowdown, underlying job growth remains strong enough to reduce labor market slack.”

The latest round of weak economic data this week may just force economists to further lower their first-quarter growth estimates, which currently range between an abysmal 0.9 and 1.4 percent annualized growth rate. Meanwhile, the government adjusted its data last week to show the economy grew at a 2.2 percent rate in the fourth quarter.

The matched sample used to develop the ADP National Employment Report was derived from ADP payroll data, which represents 411,000 U.S. clients employing nearly 24 million workers in the U.S.

The U.S. private sector added just 189,000

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