This item is a catch all of various factoids that have stacked up on my desk.  I am throwing them into one item simply as examples of how America is changing and losing our footing as we move further away from the foundations our founders saw as our best hope for stability and success as a self-governing republic. 

• A new poll finds that the number of Americans who consider the Bible as merely the teachings or stories of men rather than the word of God has increased dramatically since 2011.  While about one in five Americans regularly read the Bible and view it as divinely inspired, the same percentage of Americans now doubt its relevance and authority.  That skepticism has doubled since 2011 with the greatest increase among Americans age 18-29. 

• According to MovieGuide’s 2014 Report to the Entertainment Industry:  By the time the average American child reaches the age of 17, he will have spent 60,000 hours in front of a screen of some kind.  This equates to nearly 7 years (6.8) of media consumption. 

• One of the movies recently nominated for five Oscars, including best picture, is The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew McConaughey. It uses the “F” word over 500 times.  

• Approximately one-third of the entire population of the US has a sexually transmitted disease.  There are 20 million new cases each year, the highest in the industrialized world.  (STD’s cost our nation $16 billion a year to treat.) 

• According to the National Center for Mission & Exploited Children there are 747,408 registered sex offenders in the US. 

• Nearly all of the world’s pornography (89 percent) is produced in the US. 

• While 70 percent of all men age 18-24 visit at least one adult web site per month, the average high school boy now spends two hours every week viewing porn on the Internet. 

• The marriage rate in the U.S. has fallen to an all time low. 

• America has the highest level of one-person households in the entire planet. 

• One-out-of-three children in the U.S. are in a home without a father.  Not unrelated, America has the highest prison population in the world.  We also have over 1.4 million active gang members according to the FBI. 

• The number of heroine overdoses in the U.S. has risen 84 percent since 2010.  America has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the planet. 

• The number of Americans with no religious affiliation has grown 25 percent over the last five years. Among these, 73 percent of the non-religious support homosexual marriage. 

• A study from Lifeway Research has found that roughly half, (46 percent) of all Americans say that they “never” even think about whether they will go to heaven after they die.  

• The national debt has grown 58 percent in the 6 years of President Obama.  It is now up to $16.7 trillion. The share of the national debt per American worker is now $106,000. 

• Food stamp usage by Americans has increased by 77 percent under President Obama. 

• According to a new review of his presidency by the Tax Foundation, since becoming President, the Obama Administration has proposed 442 new tax increases.