LaNita Herlem

🇺🇸 Gold Star Widow ⭐️, Military survivor family advocate & ❤️ our Military 🇺🇸... “A man does not have to be an angel to be a saint.” ― Albert Schweitzer

[Phil Holloway ✈️ @PhilHollowayEsq]

This is a crime and should be prosecuted as such

Committing a crime on a basketball court doesn’t make it less of a crime

This is an aggravated assault

[LaNita Herlem @Southern_Yang]

He gets it. Love this

[Forest Park Pharmacy @ForestParkPharm]

My wife and I own Forest Park Pharmacy, and we don't accept insurance. None of it. That decision is exactly why we could fix what happened to a patient today.

A family came in wanting to transfer their kid's antibiotic to us. The child had already STARTED the course. Then, mid-treatment, the insurance company decided the last 14 tablets suddenly needed a "prior authorization" before the other pharmacy could hand them over. A sick kid, halfway through an antibiotic, and the answer was "please hold."

The drug is linezolid. It's a generic. It's been generic for over a decade. It treats serious gram-positive infections — the kind you do NOT want to stop antibiotics in the middle of, because an interrupted course is how you breed resistant bugs and end up right back where you started.

So why the hold-up on a cheap, common generic? Follow the fake math.

Insurance and the PBMs behind them price drugs off a number called AWP — "Average Wholesale Price." People in my industry have another name for it: "Ain't What's Paid." It's a benchmark number, not a real-world cost. On paper, the AWP for just those last 14 tablets is about $2,500.

My cash price for the same 14 tablets? $18.

Read that again. The system that's supposedly "protecting" this family from cost is the same system that inflated an $18 medication into a $2,500 line item, then slapped a prior auth on it to "review the expense" THEY invented. They manufactured the problem, then billed everyone for the privilege of solving it — and made a sick kid wait while they did it.

This is the whole game. When a drug is priced honestly, there's nothing to "manage." When it's priced off a fantasy benchmark, you get spread pricing, PA paperwork, pharmacy phone trees, and delayed treatment — all dressed up as cost control.

Here's the part nobody tells you: roughly 90% of prescriptions are low-cost generics. For the vast majority of what people pick up every day, running it through insurance does two things — raises the real cost and risks delaying your care. That's it. That's the value-add.

That's why we fired the insurance companies. No middleman deciding your kid can't finish their antibiotics on schedule. No fake prices. Just the real number, on the shelf, today.

The medication was always cheap. The insurance was the expensive part.

[Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 @MikeBales]

Truly sad that Toby Keith isn’t around for the 250th. ‘Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue’ helped carry so many of us through hard times.

[LaNita Herlem @Southern_Yang]

For a part-time job at that! Disgusting

[Karen Hamilton @KarenHamiltonVA]

Virginia Democrats gave teachers an 8% raise over the next two years. They gave themselves an 184% raise.

WOW.

[LaNita Herlem @Southern_Yang]

So cool!

[Vince Langman @LangmanVince]

Hilarious 😂

[Anna 🇺🇸 @realAnn_29]

Ha! World Cup visitors are still losing it over everyday America here is another round of things that have them wide eyed and posting nonstop:

Self serve ice machines in every gas station and fast food spot. Europeans are filming themselves filling cups the size of their heads while saying this is witchcraft. One guy from Spain called it the most American invention ever.

Texas Roadhouse with the endless fresh bread and cinnamon butter. Visitors are clearing out multiple baskets before the entree even arrives. They just keep bringing more? For free? I am never leaving.

Pharmacies inside grocery stores. Walk in for milk walk out with prescriptions shampoo and a birthday card. A French fan said it felt like one building solved my entire to do list.

Massive parking lots everywhere. Stadiums malls even restaurants have seas of asphalt. People from dense cities are shocked you can actually park for free without circling for an hour.

All you can eat buffets and bottomless brunch. One Korean visitor posted from Golden Corral: I ate for three hours and they smiled at me. This country runs on abundance.

Recliner seats in movie theaters with huge screens and buttery popcorn the size of buckets. Visitors are comparing it to flying first class on the ground.

Sweet tea so sugary it makes your teeth hurt in gallons. Southern hosts keep refilling it and fans are politely pretending they can handle it while secretly vibrating.

Drive thru car washes that are basically theme park rides. Lights soap shows and your car comes out sparkling in 5 minutes. A Brazilian said even my car feels American now.

Amazon deliveries the same day or next morning. Packages just appear. One German posted a timelapse: Ordered at midnight here at 9 a.m. What is this sorcery?

Roadside attractions and random giant statues. The Worlds Largest Ball of Twine giant roadside dinosaurs or a 50 foot cowboy boot. Visitors are detouring for selfies like it is the Eiffel Tower.

Tailgating culture before games. Grills games music and strangers sharing food in parking lots. International fans are getting adopted by locals with brisket and beer.

And the random how yall doing today? small talk from cashiers Uber drivers and hotel staff. Many say they expected cold or rude instead they are getting genuine warmth and hope you enjoy the match!

At the end of the day we Americans do not always realize how much these little things stand out. We grew up with the scale the convenience and the casual friendliness so it feels normal to us. Seeing the world light up over it reminds us how lucky we are and makes us even prouder to share it with all of you.

Keep sharing your reactions visitors. This is the good stuff. 🫶🇺🇸

[LaNita Herlem @Southern_Yang]

Blessed to say my late husband and I got to meet R. Lee Ermey. Watching Bry meet one of his heroes… it is a moment I will never forget!

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

Stanley Kubrick demanded 70 takes from actors. He let this medically discharged Marine improvise.
In 1985, R. Lee Ermey stood on a film set in England with nothing but memories and a voice that could cut through steel. He was not supposed to be there. Not as an actor, anyway.
Stanley Kubrick had hired him as a technical advisor for Full Metal Jacket. The role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman was already cast with a trained professional. Ermey's job was to teach actors how drill instructors actually behaved.
But Ermey had spent years watching Hollywood get it wrong. He approached Kubrick with a request that bordered on audacity.
"Let me show you what a real drill instructor sounds like."
Kubrick was skeptical. This was a director who shot scenes 40, 50, sometimes 70 times until they were perfect. He controlled every word. Every gesture. Every breath.
But he agreed to watch.
Ermey positioned actors in formation. The cameras rolled. And he began screaming.
For two hours, he unleashed a torrent of creative, devastating verbal assault. Stagehands pelted him with tennis balls and oranges to simulate chaos. He never flinched. Never broke rhythm. Never repeated himself.
Because he wasn't acting.
He was remembering.
Ronald Lee Ermey had enlisted in the Marines at seventeen after a Kansas judge gave him a choice: jail or the military. He chose the Corps. From 1965 to 1967, he served as a drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, breaking down civilians and rebuilding them as Marines.
In 1968, he deployed to Vietnam for fourteen months.
Then injuries ended his career. Medical discharge. Twenty-seven years old. No college degree. No plan.
He drifted to the Philippines, enrolled in university using his GI Bill, and stumbled into film work as a technical advisor. Small roles followed. A helicopter pilot in Apocalypse Now. A drill instructor in The Boys in Company C.
But nothing that changed his life.
Until Kubrick watched those tapes.
The director saw something no acting class could manufacture: authenticity so complete it became art. Ermey had produced 150 pages of original insults. His intensity never wavered. His knowledge was absolute.
Kubrick made a decision almost unheard of in his career.
He fired the original actor. He gave Ermey the role. And he allowed him to improvise more than half of his own dialogue.
Stanley Kubrick, the perfectionist who demanded endless takes from every performer, needed only two or three takes from a former drill instructor with no formal training.
Because you cannot fake what is real.
When Full Metal Jacket premiered in 1987, Ermey's performance became instantly iconic. Real drill instructors said it was the most accurate portrayal ever filmed. Veterans said it triggered memories they had buried for decades.
Ermey earned a Golden Globe nomination. He went on to appear in over sixty films. He voiced Sarge in Toy Story. He hosted military programs on the History Channel.
But he never forgot his brothers and sisters in uniform.
In 2002, the Marine Corps awarded him an honorary promotion to Gunnery Sergeant, making him the only retiree in Corps history to receive that recognition. He spent years visiting troops overseas, supporting veterans, and keeping the military spirit alive.
R. Lee Ermey passed away on April 15, 2018. The Marine Corps called him a great American and an even greater Marine.
Think about that journey.
A troubled teenager from Kansas. A drill instructor. A combat veteran. A medical discharge. Odd jobs in foreign countries. And then, at forty-three, convincing one of cinema's most demanding directors to trust him with creative freedom.
He did not succeed because he pretended to be something he wasn't.
He succeeded because he refused to be anything else.
That is not a Hollywood story.
That is a Marine who improvised, adapted, and overcame, all the way to immortality.

[Playteaux @Playteaux1]

We ARE Healing!!! ❤️‍🩹

[Buzz Patterson @BuzzPatterson]

The Scots took over Boston and they belt out OUR anthem, word for word, in a pub!

The Europeans and Japanese at the World Cup have made the world appreciate America.

(Maybe they can teach the Democrats).

[𝗠3MPH1S-B3113 @M3mph1sB]

They Love America

[Jeremy Siegel @jersiegel]

Norway fans are doing a “Viking Row” up the escalator at Boston’s South Station before heading to the World Cup

Adding this to the list of things I’ve never seen before and probably never will again

[Buzz Patterson @BuzzPatterson]

Europeans discover American cheerleaders. 🤣

Wait until the end! 🤣🤣🤣

[Race @multiplanet1]

Elon Musk got rejected by Netscape. He walked into the lobby, was too shy to talk to anyone, and walked out. Never got the job.

At his first company Zip2, the board demoted him. Twice. They refused to let him be CEO.

He got fired from PayPal as CEO while flying to his own honeymoon. The board voted him out mid air.

He almost died of malaria in 2000. Ten days in intensive care. Lost 45 pounds. A day from death.

His first child died at 10 weeks old.

His first rocket exploded. Falcon 1, flight one. Burned on the pad.

His second rocket exploded.

His third rocket exploded. The last of his money was nearly gone.

Tesla nearly went bankrupt in 2008. The closest he ever came to a nervous breakdown.

Both companies almost died on the same Christmas Eve.

He was sued by investors. Mocked by the people who built cars before him.

His childhood heroes, the astronauts who inspired him, testified against his company to Congress.

The Cybertruck window shattered on live stage in front of the world.

He overpaid for Twitter by his own admission and watched its value collapse.

He was beaten unconscious as a child and thrown down a flight of stairs.

He has said he goes to sleep alone and it kills him.

He failed in public, over and over, for thirty years.

He is the richest man in the history of the world.

The difference was never the absence of failure. It was the refusal to stop after it.