As we noted last week, Americans are abandoning religion in unprecedented numbers. Less than half of us now belong to a church, and only about a quarter of Americans regularly attend services. That's especially true of younger Americans. Illuminate: "And, in recent surveys of older members of Generation Z [those 18 YO and up], 45% self identify as atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particular. Only 35% identify as Catholic or Protestant. So, as members of the highly religious

Americans are becoming less religious and the trend has accelerated rapidly over the last several decades. The Pew Research organization published a study in December showing that the number of religious “nones” continues to grow. "Nones" are individuals who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular,” and they now make up about 30% of the population, up 6% from five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago. Self-identified Christians make up

No one with any knowledge of the electoral process ever really believed voter fraud was a problem. Sure, after every election there are a few cases prosecuted, but no widespread attempt to steal elections and nothing that would change the outcome in state-wide elections. And, after a year of chasing down every wild accusation by Donald Trump and his supporters, we now know that voter fraud is even more rare than we thought, As we have noted before, there have been many studie

Police officers come into contact with millions of individuals with serious mental health problems each year. Many are arrested and end up in the jails and prisons that have become the nation's largest psychiatric care centers. But, unfortunately, many of the interactions between police and the mentally ill have a much more tragic ending. Brookings.edu: The Treatment Advocacy Center estimated in 2015 that people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be kil

One of the great failings of America's prison system is that it does very little to rehabilitate prisoners. As a result, our recidivism rate is among the highest in the world. Harvard Political Review: "Each year, more than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons. Another nine million are released from local jails. Within three years of their release, two out of three former prisoners are rearrested and more than 50% are incarcerated again." By way of

New research published this week in the American Economic Review found that participation in early childhood education programs like those included in President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act greatly enhances educational development. American Economics Review: "Using the county roll-out of Head Start between 1965 and 1980 and age-eligibility cutoffs for school entry, we find that Head Start generated large increases in adult human capital and economic self-sufficiency, inc