Say it, Dems: "Trump is a drug addict!"

We've come to this. The main topic of discussion: Whether or not the president has lost his marbles.

Trump Devotes Press Conference to Instructing Aides to Explain That He’s Definitely Not Mad

He claims Nancy Pelosi has ‘lost it,’ while he remains an ‘extremely stable genius.’

He actually had his aides attest that he behaved with perfect sanity. No other president would have done something so bizarre.

Then he mounted his counteroffensive. He tweeted what even Fox and Friends admits is a doctored video designed to make Nance Pelosi look bad. Yet even in that crudely edited video, she still seems more coherent than Trump does on his worst days. This administration recently demonstrated that it could not spell the name "Theresa May," yet the Trumpists nevertheless feel that they have a right to critique Nancy Pelosi's communication skills. Now that is impudence.

But that wasn't the only misleading Pelosi video circulating overnight. According to the Washington Post, other distorted, slowed-down videos of Pelosi have spread across social media to make her appear drunk.

One of those videos was tweeted out by the president's own personal attorney, who questioned Pelosi's speech, suggesting something was wrong with her speech pattern was "bizarre." But Giuliani's own speech pattern was questioned when he tweeted an incoherent statement about the Pelosi video Friday morning.

Here's Rudy's tweet:

ivesssapology for a video which is allegedly is a caricature of an otherwise halting speech pattern, she should first stop, and apologize for, saying the President needs an “intervention.” Are

That tweet brought forth these responses:

What the fuck is a ivesssapology?

You put it in your covfefe.

Best enjoyed with a nice hamberder.

What would James Joyce make of the neologism "ivesssapology"? He might point out that this portmanteau word seems to refer to an American composer known for his use of dissonance, combined with feelings of regret, combined with the scientific study of sap. There may even be a sly shout-out to the SS. So what does Charles Ives have to do with Nancy Pelosi? That's the unanswered question.

Say it, Dems! The Democrats are missing an obvious mode of counterattack. Donald Trump is the only president we've had who is a drug addict.

Hope Hicks herself has admitted that Trump once had a problem with diet drugs. My earlier post quotes these words from Kurt Eichenwald:

Hope Hicks, a White House spokeswoman, acknowledged that Trump used them as diet pills for a few days in the early 1980s. However, the medical records contradict the assertion of the length of time Trump used the drugs and photographs of Trump from 1982 show him to be quite slender. In a telephone call from Newsweek, Bornstein, Trump’s current doctor, said he would only answer questions if I could identify the location of Mount Sinai.

Is it fair to note that Bornstein looks like the kind of doctor who would over-prescribe happy pills? Perhaps not. But it is fair to note that Bornstein has been accused of doing such things.

Settled lawsuits alleged Donald Trump’s doctor Harold Bornstein overmedicated his patients—one with Valium and morphine ‘well above therapeutic levels.’

In the complaint, Levin’s husband claimed Bornstein continued to prescribe barbiturates and sedatives “despite full knowledge that these prescriptions were not for the treatment of any known condition and in amounts that were well above therapeutic levels.”

The cocktail of drugs allegedly prescribed to Janet Levin—barbiturates, tranquilizers, and opiates—are all highly addictive and are among the most frequently abused prescription drugs, according to The National Library of Medicine.

Trump's problem with diet pills did not last only "a few days." To prove the point, I must repeat a few paragraphs which originally appeared in an earlier post.

According to Eichenwald, the amphetamine problem began with an endocrinologist named Dr. Joseph Greenburg, who diagnosed Trump as having a "metabolic imbalance" -- an imprecise term that could mean many different things.

The medical records and interviews with former officials with the Trump Organization reveal that Greenberg gave Trump a prescription for amphetamine derivatives in 1982 to treat his metabolic problem; the records show that Trump continued taking the drugs for a number of years and the former officials said that Trump stopped using them in 1990 at the latest.

The amphetamine derivative was Diethylpropion or tenuate dospan (the brand name). This drug quickly becomes addicting. It's hard to believe that Trump could have taken it for years without developing a crippling habit.

Abuse of this drug leads to sleeplessness, paranoia, hyperactivity, delusions, poor impulse control. Sound familiar? I've just offered a pretty fair summary of Trump's whole act.

Dr. Joseph Greenburg was the subject of a Spy magazine expose back in 1992.

Greenberg treated Trump’s nonexistent disease with a hefty prescription of Tenuate Dospan, which is a diet pill known for such side effects as fear or nervousness, false or unusual sense of well-being, severe mental changes, and seeing, hearing, or feeling things that are not there.

This wasn’t the only mention of Trump’s love for diet pills, aka speed. In the controversial 1993 biography, Lost Tycoon, author Harry Hurt credited amphetamines prescribed by Greenberg for “Donald’s mood swings” and “his fits of distemper.”

On April 19th, 1982, during the period between his license hearing before the Casino Control Commission and the groundbreaking on the Trump Plaza site in Atlantic City, Donald paid a visit to the midtown Manhattan office of Dr. Joseph Greenberg. According to the doctor’s records, Donald had been recommended by his friend Charles Goldstein, an attorney involved in the Penn Central deals. The ostensible purpose of Donald’s visit was to seek assistance in losing weight. He had gone to the right place. Dr. Greenberg was an endocrinologist who specialized in providing patients with drugs to control obesity…

Donald was so delighted with the results that he started recommending Dr. Greenberg’s treatments to his brother Robert, various friends, and celebrity acquaintances such as Diana Ross. The diet drugs, which he took in pill form, not only curbed his appetite but gave him a feeling of euphoria and unlimited energy. The medical literature warned that some potentially dangerous side effects could result from long-term usage; they included anxiety, insomnia, and delusions of grandeur. According to several Trump Organization insiders, Donald exhibited all these ominous symptoms of diet drug usage, and then some.

’The first thing I would do when I got to the office in the morning,” recalled one former vice-president, “was to go see Norma Foerderer and ask her, ‘Is this a Dr. Greenberg day?’ If she said yes, I would do everything I could to stay out of Donald’s way.’”

Why haven't the Democrats attacked Trump for his history of drug usage? This would be an excellent way for one of the less-visible Dem candidates to garner some much-needed attention: In a concerned and solicitous fashion, ask Trump to come clean about his history. Keep pounding home that point until everyone in the country is talking about Bornstein and Greenberg.

We all know Roger Stone's rule: Never defend, always attack. If Stone possessed this kind of ammunition against a Democratic president, would he use it? Of course he would use it. There would be congressional hearings into the president's drug usage. There would be testimony from professionals as to whether drug abuse can permanently affect brain function.

The average person does not comprehend tariffs or energy policy. Sadly, it appears that the average person is not capable of reading the Mueller report (or any other difficult book) -- hence the reliance on misleading summaries. But average people do understand substance abuse issues.

Once the facts become known, the question will shift from "Did Trump abuse drugs?" to "How long did Trump abuse drugs?" and "Did his drug abuse affect his cognitive abilities?"

Democrats would be foolish not to pursue this line of investigation. There is no point in arguing that doing so constitutes taking the low road. With Trump and his supporters, the low road is the only road. That "doctored video" campaign against Pelosi tells us that Team Trump intends to explore a level of lowness that makes the Marianas seem like Everest.

A note about terminology: Is it permissible to refer to Trump as a "drug addict" in the present tense, even if we lack evidence that he takes drugs at the present time? Yes. Attendees at AA meetings call themselves "alcoholics" even if they've been sober for decades.

Previous presidents (Obama, Bush) have used illegal drugs, as have so many other Americans. But youthful experimentation is not addiction. Strong evidence indicates that Donald Trump is the first American president to form an addiction.

Most people are not aware of that fact. Democrats should educate them.

I can't resist ending this essay in the spirit of Rudy Giuliani: Are