Winston Churchill was crucial to defeating Hitler. At the same time, he was a white supremacist, and defended some vicious practices, such as using poison gas in battle, and imprisoning masses of civilians. What are we to make of this?

Now that we understand that bigotry is flat-out wrong, rejecting it is nothing to be specially proud of, simply what we expect of everyone. Those who endorse bigotry deserve special condemnation.

It was different in Churchill's day. At that time, only a vanguard rejected racism. They deserve special admiration, while the rest were merely people of their time.

Churchill defended use of poison gas, but I do not know whether he ever actually gave an order to use it. (Neither side used poison gas in World War II.) As Prime Minister when Britain put Kikuyu civilians in prison camps (which the British called "villages") in the 1950s, he was responsible for it.

I disapprove of those views and actions of Churchill's. Also of his being a Tory and thus opposing efforts to help poor people in Britain. But in my mind these things do not negate his heroism in standing against Hitler.

To demand that people never do or think wrong, before we can admire them for doing something right, is setting the bar too high, and hardly anyone will pass.

Greg Palast warns that Mueller seems to be targeting Wikileaks for publishing real and important news — bona fide Democratic National Committee emails that show it was corrupt.

Sending "thoughts and prayers" to people won't help them, and it can be an excuse for politicians in failing to carry out their responsibilities.

In the UK, using a pronoun of the wrong gender to refer to someone can be a crime.

The UK has a penchant for punishing people for what they say. I believe in referring to people by the genders they profess, but it is wrong to criminalize the failure to do so.

Arguing that Dubya invaded Iraq to intimidate other countries, by showing that the US was a tough bully, one that would not be held back from war by moral scruples, expenses, humanity, or anything.

The US would be in a much better position today if it had had a conscience then.