Facts Matter: Neither Trump nor Pelosi required to disclose medical info
A recent post shared on Twitter and Facebook argued Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, like the president, should be required to release the results of her annual health physical.
But no elected official - not the president or the speaker - is required to undergo or disclose results of a medical checkup, according to The Associated Press.
The claim states, "President (Donald) Trump has to have an annual physical exam with the results released to the public. I think Nancy Pelosi, who is third in command, should be required to have an annual physical and the results released to the public as well."
Jacob Appel, a physician at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital who has researched the medical histories of U.S. presidents, told AP there is "absolutely no requirement" for presidents to have health exams or make the results public, though many have done so since President Richard Nixon became the first in the 1970s.
Trump had his annual physical in February and no details were released, though his doctor said the president was "in very good health," AP said.
Harris didn't tweet racist comment
Users expressed outrage while sharing a recent article published on the website Genesius Times that claimed presidential hopeful and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris said, "White lab coats are a sign of doctors' racism," according to Snopes.com.
But the claim was made up and is not an actual news story, Snopes said.
Genesius Times bills itself as the "most reliable source of fake news on the planet," though some who posted the item might not have realized the item was false or disregarded that disclaimer, Snopes said.
The item falsely claimed Harris said, "It's true that doctors are racist and they literally wear their racism on their white lab coat sleeve."
Some who posted the false item accused the California Democrat of being a "race baiter," Snopes said.
Nixon wasn't impeached
Late-night talk show hosts regularly take aim at President Trump and his administration. But the comedic arrows lose their edge when the comedians don't get the facts straight.
While delivering a monologue earlier this month, Jimmy Kimmel, host of ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," claimed Nixon was "the last president to be impeached by a witch hunt," according to PolitiFact.com.
Kimmel was laying out a connection between Trump, Nixon and the 1993 movie "Hocus Pocus" starring Bette Midler, the actress involved in a long-running Twitter feud with the president.
Nixon, however, was never impeached. Impeachment requires a formal vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Although the House Judiciary Committee had approved three articles of impeachment, Nixon resigned from office in August 1974 before the entire House could vote.
The last president to be impeached was Bill Clinton. In 1998, the House impeached the 42nd president, but the Senate acquitted him.
The only other president impeached by the House was Andrew Johnson, who was also acquitted by the Senate, in 1868.
Fight video not political
A video posted to Twitter June 3 shows a woman being beaten by several black men and falsely claims it was because she was wearing a red Make America Great Again hat.
The video is actually from a February 2017 post and doesn't appear to have anything to do with politics, according to LeadStories.com.
The Twitter post from earlier this month, which went viral, includes the comments, "Where is the outrage from the media elites? Female Trump supporter gets beaten for wearing a #MAGA hat."
The original version of the video posted in 2017 is titled "Woman tries to save her man from getting jumped but pays the price," according to LeadStories.com.
A red hat is on the ground, but the 2017 clip shows it was a red Washington Nationals baseball cap and did not have the MAGA logo. The cap had been worn by a man before it was knocked off.
• Bob Oswald is a veteran Chicago-area journalist and former news editor of the Elgin Courier-News. Contact him at boboswald33@gmail.com.