How Fast is the Universe Expanding?

Even a small change in some of the values used to calculate the speed of expansion gives a result that says the universe is not expanding. So until we can more accurately measure some of these values the jury is still out. And don't forget just outside the visibility zone is lurking the biggest cookie monster of all, just waiting to munch us all up!!!

two thoughts: 1) All the light we can see is red-shifted ... but the closer the source is to us (ie., more recent the light is), the less red shifted it is. That suggests to me that things are moving away from us more slowly as we approach more recent times. As we look farther and farther away we are looking back farther and farther in time. If the universe had expanded more rapidly at the beginning of time, I would expect to see the earliest galaxies moving away at the fastest speeds. Why isn't what Hubble observed proof that the universe is actually slowing its expansion? 2) are we in fact sure that the red shifts observed are NOT some artifact of gravitational lensing? Perhaps further exaggerated by invisible dark matter, rogue black holes and galaxies too dim or too nascent to yet be observed?