J Basser: 0:00

Exposed Bed Productions Weekly Show. My name is John Stacy. They call me Jay Bassler. I hail from the beautiful state of Kentucky. Today is the 15th day of May 2025. Today we've got a treat for you. We've got the one and only. Alex Graham he's otherwise known as Asnod A-S-K-N-O-D. He's got his Asnogcom website, asnogorg. You can go look at it if you want a good laugh. Just research some of his stuff. Alex is going to talk a little bit about special monthly compensation today, along with a few other things. How are you doing, alex?

Alex Graham: 0:36

I'm doing good, I can't complain. Like I was telling you, I've got this laryngitis. I've had for approximately two and a half months maybe, according to my wife. I didn't realize it was that long, but can't tell whether it's acid reflux or post-nasal drip because there's every flower underneath the sun is blooming out there in front of my house. You can't go out there without getting hit by bumblebees. It's like a target-rich environment for them.

Alex Graham: 1:09

But mostly what I wanted to talk about, as I see it come up on all the Reddit boards for veterans' claims information and I get a lot of guys that come to me from that Reddit board, bulletin board or whatever you call that, asking me questions about SMCT, because that, of course, is the gold standard for all these guys that went through the World War III in Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot of probably as many as there were in Vietnam came down with some pretty wild and really traumatic brain injuries, but more so with IEDs. Not as though they cornered the market on IEDs, we just didn't have that terminology for it back in 1968. We called them mines.

J Basser: 2:09

Well similar to mines.

Alex Graham: 2:13

I've never had the misfortune to drive over one, but I've had a lot more excitement in my career flying with drunken pilots and so on.

J Basser: 2:27

Flying drunk, flying with drunken pilots and so on.

Alex Graham: 2:28

flying drunk, I lost my first cousin's boy to IED in Afghanistan so anyway, with the advent of the decision last year of Alaska versus McDonough, it unhinged that 30% ruling. It takes away the hospital requirement. Essentially, congress created it and then the VA promptly misunderstood it, misquoted it and created the regulation incorrectly and against the law, forcing you to actually be basically the same as R2. And it was never designed to be that way. As most people know, r2, virtually and that's what we're going to talk about tonightually the only way to approach getting to R1, let alone R2, which obviously they're synonymous with each other, closely associated is to obtain two rates between L and N, based on two separate disabilities. And if one of them, of course, as we all know, as I've taught you a million times, if one of those two disabilities are entitlements to special monthly compensation as aid and attendants under 3.350 B3, then you qualify for O. And when you qualify for O, if one of them is aid and attendance under B3, then you automatically catapult up to R1. R2, of course, is just a distinction of needing to be institutionalized. The beauty of SMCT is it relaxes that standard. Now, all of a sudden, you only need one L for aid and attendance and actually have a rating, even a zero. I've gotten some guys who've got a zero rate for TBI, because the VA invariably combines the two together and essentially you do, you want them to do that. But more importantly, they'll come by, you'll get 70 for PTSD. And all of a sudden you got 70 for TBI and you're thinking to yourself, wow, I'm gonna get to 100 on one of these suckers. And they put both of them together and still call it 70 because they they say, well, we can't tell which one's which. Most VA or most veterans get pretty wound up about that. They go, they're screwing me, they're defeating my ability to get to 100% for one rating that doesn't make any difference.

Alex Graham: 5:22

Last week and this is no kidding I had a gal. She had that Lyme disease and it got her really bad with grand mal, seizures, vertigo, patina seizures, and they gave her 100% for the Lyme disease for a couple three years. And all of a sudden the guy come knocking on the door, said we got to reduce that 100% because you don't have Lyme disease anymore. We're proposing to reduce you from 100 to zero for that. Well, I can have some serious complications If you're on SMCS, as she was. It means she's floating back down into bare minimum for TDIU.

Alex Graham: 6:09

So she contacted me and she says "'Holy shit, batman, what do I do'. And I said "'Well, you know what I was taught in Vietnam? "'is when they're attacking you, you don't huddle. "'and pray to Jesus, you start attacking back. So that's exactly what I did.

Alex Graham: 6:29

She had filed and asked for aid and attendance within a year of that, excuse me. So I filed an appeal up to the board and I said I want aid and attendance and I was denied for it here, and I want it strictly for these grand mal and petite mal seizures which are only rated at 20%, john, which doesn't sound like it's even enough to you know. It's like tinnitus times two or something or a bum knee for 20%. But the other thing I threw in there was she needed it because she had these killer headaches every day, bad migraines that lasted two or three hours Every day. She's got a two-year-old son. She just fired her husband, kicked him out the door. He's just a dead weight like an anchor on her, sitting around eating Cheetos and watching TV and waiting for her to get her VA check every month. So she sent him packing and I asked for an extra scheduler on top of her 50% for the headaches, because she needed it, and she damn sure needed it if you were thinking about trying to get the SMCL, or so I thought.

Alex Graham: 7:51

But if you do read the physical language of 3. What is it? Let's see which one is it 38 USC 1114, uh l, it says. You know it talks about loss of use of hand and foot, loss of use of both feet, blind, needing aid and attendance. But it the way the aid and attendance wording is phrased. It says essentially uh, for disabilities so severe that they require aid and attendance. Now, it didn't say anything about you got to have 100% rating to get there. It didn't say you had to have a minimum of 70.

Alex Graham: 8:35

So I'm thinking to myself shit, I've never heard anybody getting an extra scheduler for headaches. But why can't you? Nobody told me you can't. Well, I filed for it and boy did I get bitch slapped better than a law judge. He says no, no, no, no. You can't have an extra scheduler for headaches at 50%, because 50% is the max scheduler rate for the headaches. You can't get any higher than 50. And I had to agree with him. Yeah, he's absolutely right, but I just figured. Just because it says 50 doesn't mean anything to me. I don't obey the rules. Nobody taught me the rules, I just make them up as I go and if they tell me I'm wrong, well, okay, I'll buy that. So anyway, he still granted the aid to tenants.

Alex Graham: 9:28

The judge did. He says, because of the 20% for the grand mal seizures, which are well recorded in her claims file and her Capri records, we're going to give you aid to tenants for basically for a 20 percent rating and and I even wrote it in the legal brief that I thought she deserved it, regardless of what va rated her out under less than five petite mall seizures a month, which is not supported by the medical evidence that she was having 20, 25 a month. And let's say five of those 25 were grand mal, where you fall down on the ground, you run a risk of kissing that concrete too hard, you get a concussion. And she basically had her mom live next door to her or vice versa, and she'd come over and stay with her during the day and in the evening she had one of those baby monitors and their mom could hear it next door. So if something happened, the baby started crying and kept crying and she knew there was trouble. So nobody can tell me you have to have 100% rating, like it says in the M21, to get in line for aid and attendance. So with that sure knowledge, let's move on to the next thing. Because of the Barry versus McDonough decision that came out in May of last year decision that came out in may of last year we know that you can have multiple bumps for the, the bumps afforded you in 3.350, f3 and f4. You only get one bump on f4, which would be a full step bump.

Alex Graham: 11:22

So, presuming you get the 8-net tenants, which is SMCL, and in this case that I'm getting ready to demonstrate to you, his Parkinson's is very, very bad tremors and whatnot. He's rated pretty heavily for it, based on tremors in the legs, tremors in the hand, both hands of one foot. But he's got on top of that. He's got a real bad diabetes with peripheral neuropathy in his feet. He's even got a afl on one foot. Drag his foot up in the air because he's got real bad foot. Drop he's a hot mess. But that would give him that all that Parkinson's was the base procedure, the base reason why they gave him the aid and attendance. So now if you're going to go outside of that and start building this thing, you've got to shop around and find other disabilities that are separate and distinct from Parkinson's. And for a Vietnam and he's Vietnam vet too so the obvious thing is you start shopping around there.

Alex Graham: 12:43

Now, in this case, he's going to get his bump from L to M because of something that was chronic lymphocytic leukemia Another one of those presents from Agent Orange. So that gave him a bump from L to M, full step bump under 350 F4. Now stay with me here, we're going to do some gymnastics with SMC. He has a seven page code sheet. Now what happened is I applied for aid and attendance and I also threw in loss of use of uppers, loss of use of lowers. When he came to me he was already up at the Board of Veterans Appeals appealing his ratings for his legs, for the peripheral neuropathy associated with diabetes. So when I applied for that, they strung me out for about five months and finally they said you can't be in two places at once and I understand that you can't be applying for aid to tenants down below while you're on remand from the board for a higher rating.

Alex Graham: 13:55

Now, legally I could do this, but because the VA is so stupid I can't do this. He's asking for a higher rate from 10 to 40%, from 2010 to 2013. I'm asking for loss of use of the uppers and the lowers in 2025, maybe going back to 2022, not back to 2010 in that era. So they're taking me, they're. They've dissolved my claim in acid. My claim for loss of use has been thrown in the trash can and they're not going to address it, and and certainly not even I'll probably have to refile for it if I want to. Now you're going to.

Alex Graham: 14:44

I got a trick up my sleeve here. I haven't been able to use it very frequently because I very rarely had veterans that ill. Nor did we have the Berry versus McDonough decision to draw from too. But anyway, when they denied or said that technically the loss of use was already on appeal and they weren't going to decide that at the same time, I've been pestering these guys for a couple of years to give him the bump up from L to M for the chronic lymphocytic leukemia and they kept saying, nope, went all the way through it. It's 996 HLR.

Alex Graham: 15:28

Nope, don't see it, can't get there from here. Well, why can't you grant the M? It's under F4. And they can't see it. Can't see it from where I'm standing. I don't see anything about 350, f3 or F4. I can't see it. Can't see it from where I'm standing. I don't see anything about 350, f3 or f4. I can't see it. So finally, here it is.

Alex Graham: 15:51

They declare a cue on themselves so we forgot to give you that bump up from l to m back in 22. Sorry about that. Here you. You go, $14,850 for our little mistake. But Mr Graham doesn't get paid 20% for doing that for you. Because he didn't declare a cue, we cued ourselves.

Alex Graham: 16:21

So Mr Graham hasn't created a situation where he objected to the fact that we weren't giving him the L. He just kept asking for a higher level of review. He never took it up to the board. Now he's reopened it again and asked for it a second time, which is not true for the bump from L to M as a not as a bump, mind you, but as aid and attendance for his chronic lymphocytic leukemia. I never asked for a bump from L to M. It was strictly for aid and attendance. They misread that. They said well, we're going to give you the bump from L to M for the chronic lymphocytic. We're not even going to talk about another aid and attendance because that would bump his ass right up to R1 and a New York second.

Alex Graham: 17:12

So they gave him the bump to M, which is you know what I call this SMCP he has an M and a K. That's what I call poor man's poor man's R1. You can't ever get there, but you can. But you have to be very adroit at this. So I'm looking at all his ratings. They've used up the Parkinson's and they threw in the loss of use of Winky under SMCK, so he had an M plus K.

Alex Graham: 17:46

But what else did he have? As I say, he has post-traumatic stress disorder for 70%. He's got a bronze star with a V to prove it. And he's got ischemic heart disease at 60%. He's got sleep apnea at 50%. And he's got enough peripheral neuropathy ratings to run out the window, up one wall and down the other and out to the mailbox. The peripheral neuropathy right, lower femoral 30, left femoral 30. What's this one here? Uh, left upper, uh, same thing with uh, uh for 20. And bilateral hearing loss 10 percent, tinnitus 10, speech changes 10. He's got all kinds of things going on here, but mostly he's got all the ingredients to get bumps all the way up to n and one half and he's still got that k. So he bumped from m to m and a half with the ptsd. He bumped from m and a half to N with ischemic heart disease and he bumped from N to N and a half with about 120% of diabetes ratings for diabetes plus peripheral neuropathy. So he's got an N and a half plus a K.

Alex Graham: 19:15

Now if you know how to play hopscotch with SMC know how to play hopscotch with SMC you would know that when you reach the maximum rate you can get to in SMCP, which is N and one half plus K, you automatically migrate up to O. But regardless of how you got to O, if somewhere back there you got an aid and attendance or been diagnosed with a need for aid and attendance, which is how he got here to begin with he had the aid and attendance for his Parkinson's. So you're going to peer him in and say, because he's got all these things wrong with him, to add up to N and a half plus K and one of them is aid and attendance, you jump from o to r1 and, as I said before, barry went became law in june I was june 6 to 24 when they made that decision at the federal circuit. You have a damn hard time getting to N and a half plus K, because all you could hope for is to be on aid and attendance, be blind and have some loss of use and that get you up to the R1. That's the only way you're going to get there.

Alex Graham: 20:38

It required some tricks to go through the lower rate, through SMCP, to get to a bump position and the best you could hope for would be the blind need, aid and attendance. And then you get another kick from M to N due to a 100% rating. But back before this they wouldn't give you 100 and a half. All they'd give you was one 100 or one 50% half step. Couldn't get both of them. That's the way they did it.

Alex Graham: 21:15

I have seen decisions where they did it, but they weren't precedential. They occurred at the board because somebody stepped on their necktie and they granted it and there wasn't any rhyme or reason to it. But there were only about three or four of them to boot anyway. So when they passed Barry, it opened up multiple half-step bumps and that made it a whole lot easier to get to N and a half plus K. That bumps and that made it a whole lot easier to get to n and a half plus k. So if you whip out your, your uh adjudication or not, the adjudication manual, god forbid. If you get a 38, you have a 38, cfr. 3.350, and scroll all the way down to h, which discusses r1. H2 discusses this scenario where you somehow arrived at n and a half plus k, which is the maximum rate that you can get under p. So therefore you are at o, and if you at O and it says it doesn't make any difference if you used aid and attendance to get to O, if you need aid and attendance and you are at O, then you are at R1. That's 3.350H2.

Alex Graham: 22:44

Nobody's been able to avail themselves of it unless they had the amputations at the torso of the lower extremities here, literally amputated, flush with the with the torso of your body, such that you could not affix a prosthesis to yourself or prostheses and strap on your legs and go for a walk because there wasn't anything to hook them to except your torso. That doesn't work real good. That was one of the requirements for n, and you would also have to physically lost your eyeballs, and that would get you there too. But that just gets you to end, and then you'd still have to have another half step bump for something and you've got your better, have a k or this whole thing doesn't work out at all. So it hinges on a bunch of different things, but mostly, yeah, I lean on.

Alex Graham: 23:41

I have to look it up on my legal brief but I don't want to wipe out being attached to you right now. But basically there's a decision called Moira versus Principia and I have to go in there and look for the spelling, but it's M-O-R-E-I-R-A, I believe, spelling, but it's m-o-r-e-i-r-a, I believe. And you'll see it in a lot of my legal briefs, underneath the, the legal standard of review or the legal landscape, and it says smc is awarded based on the level of disability, which is true. It's kind of like legos you just stick them together and stick, and if this one is this tall, then it goes over here and attaches to this one and next thing, you know, you've built your little Lego castle and got up to the R1, r2, t level.

Alex Graham: 24:35

It's a recipe of combining things and combining them in the right order, and sometimes it even hinges on getting them rated in the right order. And sometimes it even hinges on getting them rated in the right order, like getting aid and attendance for Parkinson's before you lose your lower extremities or the ability to walk with your lower extremities. When that happens, then it's loss of use. It's it's something different from aid and attendance. You cannot grant aid and attendance for loss of use. It's against the law. That's why they have two different kinds of ratings. One for loss of use of your lower extremities is due to Parkinson's, and you're getting aid and attendance for Parkinson's. You're not pyramiding by adding that onto it. You haven't pyramided. Or even if you have pyramided, it's permissible in aid and attendance, which is about the only place in the whole scheme of things at 38 CFR that you're going to get away with pyramiding and get paid for it.

Alex Graham: 25:49

So this is the back door, this 3.350H2, which is the back door, that says N and a half equals O if you have a k and if, if, what? If the reason you have this is not loss of use but aid and attendance, then you catapult up to r1. So it's an interesting it's. It's like checkers, where you go click clack, click clack and get to the other side. The guy's got a king. You put an extra one on top of you.

Alex Graham: 26:22

It's pretty tricky and unfortunately, if you think smc is difficult, I I can't even begin to tell you how many things you have to memorize and every time you get to there there's always some little codicil that'll say up but you can't do that, or you can only do it on thursday, or you can only do on thursday in the afternoon, you can't do it in the morning. Add to that the insult that the regional office folks have a clue on how to do smc. I have looked them across a desk, I have looked them in the eye, I have looked at them on video cameras. I have talked to them on telephones doing HLR informal conferences and formal conferences and explained to them how it works. And they look at you like a deer in the headlights. They don't connect with it because they use the M21, and they just type in your 100% for this, 100% for that, 70 for this, 70 for that, and push send and it kicks out what they're supposed to get.

Alex Graham: 27:37

Oh, you get SMCS. Well, that's pretty easy. All you have to do is figure out that the guy's got a tdiu or a hundred percent scheduler rating and all the rest of the on the code sheet adds up to sixty percent or more. Homer simpson's monkey mojo could figure this one out while he's going to get a beer for Homer. I mean, it's that simple. But when you move up to SMCL, they can figure that out. If the Board of Veterans Appeals says give him aid and attendance, they go okay, got that right. Hit, enter special monthly compensation calculator. Figures it out, says got to give him an L, oh, and he's got a K. So we got to give him the K too. So you get an L and a K, but the machine, the computer that does this calculation for SMC seizes up.

Alex Graham: 28:34

It cannot for the life of it see an extra 100%. That has to be arrived at with these devices in front of your face, behind your glasses. There Somebody actually has to look at a code sheet manually and say, hmm, it's got an extra 100% here. Oh well, we can bump them from L to K or L to M, rather, excuse me, and continue to give them the K. But that's the end of the party. They can't see any further than that and they have to do it manually. Most times they'll go right over the 100%. You got extra for something and look for a half-step jump and give you L and a half.

Alex Graham: 29:21

I don't know how many guys have come to me with the l and a half and said what happened? I got another 100 for ptsd here and plus this loss of use or this aid and attendance for for my traumatic brain injury. How come they didn't give me the bump? What? What's going on? They can't do it, it's impossible and I'm not allowed to divulge this yet. But I got a not for publication something from somebody that works at VA and it was a discussion from the VA office of inspector general and it's a report. They're getting ready to publish it. But I got the thing that says not for publication. Yet we got to make sure we clear this with the new boss, doug Doug Collins, before we publish it, because it's from pretty damning evidence.

Alex Graham: 30:15

They went out to 19 regional offices and they said, okay, flip out a code sheet, as some guy says, here you go, let's rate this guy for SMC, show me your rating method. And they hamburger, 13 of the 19 ratings got them wrong. So and they said, okay, how did it? How did it end up wrong? Let's do the kind of the fault system check. And they all came back to this SMC calculator and they said well, garbage in, garbage out.

Alex Graham: 30:49

You can put in the correct parameters up front by typing it in, but the machine can't see, it won't understand, it, rejects it and says, okay, yeah, this guy should get M and a half, and it spits out L and a half, or it might spit out M if somebody's looking at it and saying, I wonder why I didn't do that, I got to fix it. But most of the time they just let the machine do it. And the machine does it wrong every time. Or, in this case, it did it wrong 13 out of 19 times. Or, in this case, they did it wrong 13 out of 19 times. I have no idea what the individual cases involved that they used for test runs through the machinery, but it was uniform from one regional office to the next because they're all using the same SMC calculator. Now multiply that out, john. How many years do you think they've been doing their wrong? I have no idea, but I wonder how many guys are out there with an L and a half that should have an M?

J Basser: 31:58

or after. Barry should have R1.

Alex Graham: 32:01

There were many guys that actually had it and died and didn't get nothing. Yeah well, we can't. That's. The sad thing about death of a veteran is that the spouse can't file a Q and say you screwed me. The only way you can keep these things alive is what I do. If one of my clients' spouse called me and says well, looks like Frank's headed for the last roundup, one of my clients' spouse called me and says, well, looks like Frank's headed for the last roundup. We're probably going to have to call hospice next week because he's not eating now. I went. Oh yeah, that's probably about the first clue. So first thing I do is I file them for aid and attendance for every last thing that's wrong with them, john, and I'll get them R2 instantly, but it might only last or carry for three months. But that's a nice little kicker for the wife if you're sitting there at SMCS and all of a sudden you're at R2. That's the difference between $4,200 and $11,200 a month. That's a $6,000 jump. Essentially for seven, that's $21,000 for three months.

J Basser: 33:11

That's a good list.

Alex Graham: 33:17

I don't like to look like an ambulance chaser, but I do it for the spouse and nine times out of 10, they'll deny I'll have to take it up to the board and they grant almost within 21 days. They see the rainbow and the pot. At the end they say I see what Graham's doing. The guy isn't going to be on R2 for the rest of his life because he's already dead. So they get him for three months or something. But it's a nice way to just get a little bit more before they go to heaven or even after they go to heaven, as far as I know.

J Basser: 33:58

You know. I mean do what you can. It's just sad that they do that. You know they need to be able to have one of these computer wizards that's in the government right now to go in that computer system and maybe put the right parameters in and have it do its job correctly. That could be done really easy.

Alex Graham: 34:17

Well, you could fix the SMC calculator. If you were an AI, it guy, whatever. You'd probably go in there in the guts of that thing and look at the program and you'd say, well shit, all I got to do is change line 47 and line 204, 205, 206. This thing will work like a New York second. It'll punch out the correct rating every time. Why haven't you fixed it?

J Basser: 34:41

This thing's been screwed up for years, decades, when you write an AI program. When you write an AI program, you got to look at the factors involved. You need data and you need to be able to submit data as far as your claims process and your rating schedules. In order to get that in there, it's got to be in there correctly and it's got to be based off of what the 38 says. It can be done, but it's going to take a pretty tough person to do it.

Alex Graham: 35:08

Well, I find it interesting that it will work right up to SMCL, but it won't work any further. Why is it that it doesn't work all the way to SMCN? Nobody qualifies the machine's broke and they know it's been broke. And the OIG comes to the regional offices and the DROCs across the Fruity Plains and they say your calculator don't work. And the guy goes no, it works just fine. Well, yeah, it works just fine, but it's cranking out the wrong information, the wrong rating. You know, they just shrug their shoulders. Well, that's not my department. My job is to stick it in the front end here and then take it out the back end, stick it in an envelope and mail it to the vet. Well, that's a pretty sad state of affairs. And now you throw Barry versus McDonnell in on top of it and it becomes a fuster cluck of massive proportions.

J Basser: 36:16

Well, you're right. I mean, if you're rated, if you've got 100% or IU and you get SNCS and you got a bunch of other disabilities, you know it adds up four, five, 600%. Then look out.

Alex Graham: 36:33

Sadly there's too many guys named Commando Craig, combat Craig, whatever he calls himself, and that other guy that wears the fancy jacket and the little musher, the handkerchief sticking up out of his pocket. He's got a real sexy hairdo. Too bad, these guys. They teach a lot of stuff and that's a good thing. For veterans is to be taught or to see the different ways to do it. But what I see is that nobody seems to grasp the way I look at SMC John.

Alex Graham: 37:08

When a guy has SMCS, what has he got? He has something that is considered to be a 100% rating. All by itself. That might be TDIU or a it or a hundred percent scheduler for ischemic heart disease because he's blowing a one to three Mets. That is the base leg that you're using to get SMC because you got 60% more. To me, every SMCS is an L. Every time you see 100% or a TDIU, it is an L depending on how disabled the veteran is and the older you get, the more disabled you get and the greater the level of your disability and the symptoms. So I don't believe s is a static rating. I believe that it's just a transitory transition. You know, you say going from 100 to s to l to r1, or however you want to go up the ladder.

J Basser: 38:22

There's two roads for S You're either physically housebound, say that again. There's two roads for S. You're either physically housebound, can't get out of the house, or you have 100 plus 60 or total plus 60.

Alex Graham: 38:35

Right, most of them are 100 plus 60 or total plus 60. Right, most of them are 100 plus 60 because a doctor could write you a letter that says he's substantially housebound and can't get out unless somebody puts him in the wheelchair. It's not raining because he kind of has a poor grip and can't hold the umbrella over himself before they get out the car and get soaking wet. When you're talking about that level of housebound, you're actually most of these guys are almost bedridden. Uh, due to uh, whatever it might be, might be loss of use. Maybe that's not service-connected and they can't accomplish that to get to L for loss of use. But even if you are housebound, getting a doctor to write that sometimes is very difficult. They'll hem and they'll haw or they'll say I'm not putting my name on that. They might come and sue me for falsely claiming that you're housebound. Maybe you're not, maybe you're funning me, maybe you're bullshitting me. That's why the 100 plus 60 is the more common way to get to SMCS most frequently.

J Basser: 39:56

Most of it should be automatic, though, alex. I mean, if you've got that, it should be automatic. It's an ancillary benefit and it should kick it out and fit it out, which it does.

Alex Graham: 40:03

Well, the whole thing should be automatic From the moment you get a 100% rating. Va should have the binoculars on your ass and be looking at you and saying I've got 100% for this ischemic heart disease. Look at it. You'd say it's got 100 for this, uh, ischemic heart disease. Let's pull him in for a cnp exam. See if we can give him smcl for aid and attendance, because he's forgetting to take his medications or something or he's not. He doesn't have the stamina to stand up and cook. He gets short of breath, has to go over there and start popping those nitroglycerins like tic-tacs.

Alex Graham: 40:39

They don't make that determination and that's an inferral. That's like when you go in and file a claim for diabetes and when they do the diabetes test they go wow, yes, sir, you're pumping yourself with a ton of glipizide there. Sir, you're pumping yourself with a ton of glipizide there. Let's go see if he's got some peripheral neuropathy and they send you out for a second exam that just deals with what your peripheral neuropathy is in your extremities, because it's inferred If you have diabetes you might have problems with your legs or your hands or your eyes, or your eyes or your kidneys. I mean the. I mean the list. It's a pretty long list. Let's look at it that way. But yeah, diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy both of them but va doesn't make that determination to give you the diabetes and they might give you the peripheral neuropathy.

Alex Graham: 41:36

But if you got 100 for ihd I, you nobody is going to get off their dead ass and say let's send him out and find out whether he needs aid and attendance. They're not going to make that determination. Ackles versus Derwinsky says that's what you're supposed to do. Neandrum versus Nicholson Same thing. If you see that he can't accomplish something like walking, then you should be saying let's send him out and see what the story is on that. They had the blinders on. They're looking down at the ground. Here's your 100%. We're not investigating this any further. If you've got a bitch file a to look. We're not investigating this any further If you've got a bitch file a 526. That's not the way it works. It's unfortunate, but you've got to be a self-starter in the SMC world. They don't come knocking on your door and try to beg you to take more money from them. It doesn't work that way.

J Basser: 42:35

It doesn't work that way. I mean it's not plausible for them to do it. You know it's kind of like they would serve better time working for JG Whitworth trying to get you to sell your insurance to him or something, doing what they do, jg.

Alex Graham: 42:55

Whitworth, that's a good one. I have to remember that.

J Basser: 43:03

Diabetes is hard to get a rating increase because they kind of stick to their guns on the regulation of activities. But one of the big things now is the pop of ischemia. If you have a bent, you know during the day, you know you'd have to call an ambulance, go to the hospital. Now they got these gcms on your arms everywhere and veterans are still dropping low, but their wife or caregivers wake up middle of the night shoving their tweaky down the throat and they're avoiding going to the hospital. Well, the a saving a lot of money keeping out of the hospital, but they need to adjust the rating schedule in order to tell that because you're still dropping low. I brought that up the other day to a couple of Congress senators and it's in their things right now. We'll see what happens. I'm going to go testify and see what happens on that because I want this thing fixed.

Alex Graham: 43:48

Well, we're flying back for the NOVA conferences. This fall they're going to be back in Washington DC and myself and several other litigators have been making overtures to Cheryl Mason, the former BVA chairman, who retired before Biden got out of office. Real nice gal. She's the special assistant to Doug Collins, a new secretary. He hired her to bring her on board so that they could start figuring out where to take the scissors to all the fat at VA and most of it apparently is at the fat at VA and most of it apparently is at the Veterans Health Administration. And they got too many bedpan changers, too many janitors, too many non-doctor, non-psychologist, non-psychiatrist, non-nursing.

J Basser: 44:51

Non-patient care. Non-patient care.

Alex Graham: 44:55

It's not going to impact patient care or getting an appointment or whatnot, because they're not 86 and the psychiatrist that's throwing them out the door and pushing you out six, eight months for an appointment with a psychologist or a mental health consult. I'm talking about a affect that, and of course the powers that be on the progressive side, are all doing the panicking like the sky is falling chicken. Little that the life as we know it as veterans is going to go take a turn for the worse. I think it'll take a turn for the better. I'd like to see what they're doing down there. You know, think about it. John.

Alex Graham: 45:47

West LA you've probably heard a lot about West LA what? 288 acres? 388 acres. And the VA started leasing that out to Hertz Rent-A-Car, a commercial laundry service. Brentwood Private School built their whole athletic field on the property and they said we're not giving that back. We spent $2 million on that but it belongs to veterans. The guy that gave it to them back in 1898 or 1919 said this is VA. It is going to be about VA for veterans, by veterans and in aid of making veterans' life better.

Alex Graham: 46:27

And the VA not under Doug Collins, mind you, but because of all these people, the poobahs that are in office there, all these people, the poobahs that are in office there, who've been there for the last 20 years. They're saying, no, we're not going to build that, take any money and use all that acreage to create homeless housing for veterans Hell, no, we're not going to spend that kind of money. No, no, no, no. That is so anti-veteran, I cannot believe it. And it's so against the law that they're utilizing that and making money off all these guys. There's pump jacks out there still pumping oil on that property and they're not naked. I just can't believe it. They've got plenty of room there. I've been there. I know they've got tons and tons of room that they could be using to build that out and tear down those old barracks like things and put in some real nice housing in there, a single unit with a common room for like a fair field inn where you go down there and get meals. I just can't believe that they're doing that to veterans. But in the scheme of things, it doesn't shock me in the least. The good news is, as I'm flying back there to Tennessee, you know where Columbia Tennessee is. Yes, I do. I think it's north of Nashville. Tunnel to Tower is building 59 houses up there and one of my clients is getting the ribbon cutting ceremony approximately July 10th, 15th somewhere in there. So Cupcake and me are going to fly back there, rent a car and go up to Columbia. We got invited to the Tunnel to the Towers ribbon cutting and so I'm looking forward to meeting this guy.

Alex Graham: 48:24

I got him R2. He's a man Got real bad Parkinson's but he's not a Vietnam vet. He came down with Parkinson's while he was still in the service of Vietnam. Yet he came down with Parkinson's while he was still in the service. He's got two ARCOMs, a V on one of them and a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart and a rotten case of TBI. But I got him R2. I didn't get him to SMCT. He had so much wrong with him it was actually easier and he didn't have a diagnosis for TBI. But he's way off in left field with the ptsd to the point where he's has hallucinations and delusions and attacks people sometimes when he gets a little antsy and take cupcake.

J Basser: 49:12

Take an extra day and take cupcake. Kept the bowling green to the corvette plant.

Alex Graham: 49:16

Oh yeah, yeah well, you know I'm a mopar guy but I'm willing to go look at, go look at chevy's. I know chevy didn't cupcake wrong, that she bought a brand new camaro yeah, with a t-top on it back I think. I'm trying to remember as well. I was dating her girlfriend before I met her, her girlfriend. My girlfriend introduced me to her. That's how that happened. She was married to another guy back then, but that T-top leaked like a sieve.

Alex Graham: 49:49

She one day she went to get something out of the trunk and open it up. There's mushrooms growing in the truck. So took it to the dealership, had a little talk with them about that. They cleaned it all up. The mushrooms came back about six months later and then one day the windshield wipers turned on and she couldn't turn them off. She took it to the dealership and about two blocks away from the dealership the windshield wipers turned off. She goes in there and says God damn, things won't turn off. Well, they're not running now. Lady, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Drives away, starts up again six blocks down the road, makes a U-turn, heads back and they shut off again. Finally she took it back in and says here's the keys. I want my money back.

J Basser: 50:32

Don't mind me, a bit Defects but I'm looking forward to that.

Alex Graham: 50:41

I donate quite a bit of money to what's well Tunnel of Towers, but I also donated to people that are building those Fisher House. Yes, they let Debbie those Fisher House. Yes, they let Demi stay at Fisher House for almost a month when they thought I was dog meat.

J Basser: 51:06

That's probably one of the nicest places that I've ever seen. We got one here. They're beautiful In the rooms. They take care of people. I think Ray and his wife stayed in one. When he's in the hospital, I think Pam stayed in one. I was scheduled to go to St Louis last summer for some spinal cord stuff. They wanted me to stay in the Fisher house but we worked out I could get it down here. Well the one they had there in Seattle.

Alex Graham: 51:36

I think it had six or eight bedrooms in it. It had a big common area, a big dining room table. It should probably bring everybody in for Thanksgiving dinner, certainly a whole 14 people at that thing. It was huge. I'd never gone over there.

Alex Graham: 51:51

I was sick, I was in the hospital, but Debbie took pictures of it and showed them to me. She said you should have seen that kitchen. They had big ceiling-to-floor sub-zero refrigerators and freezers, all decked out with the wood fronts on them and everything Almost where they looked like cabinets. You wouldn't even know it was a refrigerator unless you went over there and pulled out the door and opened it and it was chock full of food. You didn't have to go buy food. They had that thing stocked to the gills every day A walk-in pantry, everything you could even dream of in that pantry. They kept that stocked up.

Alex Graham: 52:34

And when she came out of that thing I said well, if I ever get rich which I was hoping for, of course I didn't know Cupcake was independently wealthy and she didn't know it until her parents died and left her a lot of money which I'm not going to go into. But she stayed there and took all those pictures and showed them to me. I'm not going to go into, but she she stayed there and took all those pictures and showed them to me. I think I even wrote a blog and put some of that information on there. But that kitchen was absolute cat's pajamas, man. You couldn't ask for it. I can't think of another appliance you could put into that kitchen that it didn't already have and the only thing it was missing was an electric gas scratcher.

J Basser: 53:22

You can cook whatever you want to do, you know.

Alex Graham: 53:25

Well, yeah, and you know, I suppose you could still call out for a pizza if you were real lazy, but anybody with a half brain if they didn't put a meal together there, what was in there? And some of that stuff was real simple. You know, macaroni and cheese, two-step process, stir and bake, kind of shit, but hey, it impressed the living shit out of me. So when I started getting a little bit further down the road and started doing my work that I do now, I came up with some extra money from all these people that I get a fee for helping. We started donating to fisher pretty heavily and then I got approached by uh, the tunnel to Towers people and I thought you know, these are the only two I've ever seen that put that much money on Target. I think it's a constant race between those two that they're always dancing at. About 95 to 96 percent of the money donated goes to the project and the rest of it's postage. I mean, it's not like now. I'm by law, after I got sued, I'm not supposed to talk about this, but let's put it this way. Let's talk about somebody.

Alex Graham: 54:51

Once upon a time there was an outfit called Wounded Wallet Project and they managed to get 39% of their donations on Target, and all those commercials were please donate $20 a month. God, you would have thought that every veteran in the world had his own house with the keys handed to him, mortgage paid off. Not so, I'll tell you. The guys running now we're all driving Lexuses and had real nice yachts and $2.5 million waterfront property in Jacksonville. So you know it's what it is. If you want to know where the money's going, look at it. Look at those IRS 990 forms, man. You can see if somebody's sucking that money off to the side and buying fancy cars. It's sad that they can do that. Get away with it. Look you right in the face on TV, because the guys they show are pretty disabled and that's sad, but they're not even getting that money.

J Basser: 56:02

They are, but they are pushing a lot of R2 veterans around Well.

Alex Graham: 56:10

I'll bet you $100 I could go into that new village in Columbia with 59 very, very disabled veterans and find some of them are SMCP instead of R2 or T. I'm not going shopping for clients. I need more clients like I need more holes in my head.

J Basser: 56:32

No, I build a quite up all and you can always play quarterback, hand them off to one of your running backs or one of your full backs or something like that.

Alex Graham: 56:41

Well, I've trained 30 guys on this SMC. 30 guys and gals and man, they're red hot, they're all out there, just collecting them, sweeping them up and getting them into R1 and R2. It's a recipe just like baking cookies, john. It's not that difficult if you understand the principle. But if you've been to law school sometimes you get that law school, your brain on drugs kind of mentality like the two eggs in the frying pan. You get stuck on something you know, wes McCauley.

Alex Graham: 57:21

Good old Wes just called me this afternoon while I was on my way to the doctor to find out why I got this laryngitis. He says yeah, you ever heard of this guy called Coral, coral or Coral. I'd never heard of him, wes, and he goes. Well, he came to me and I took his claim because I figured I was going to get him off SMCS and get him at least up to an M and a half in or something like that, because he's an S 100 plus 60. And he said I wasn't doing it right, I wasn't doing it. And Wesley goes I'm trying to get you up into aid and attendance. He says, says no, you got to start following me for an increase for my 50, for my obstructive sleep apnea. But you can't. You're at 50, that's it on osa and they're trying to get him an increase on his 20 for the diabetes, trying to get an increase on his 100% for his metastatic prostate cancer.

Alex Graham: 58:17

Man, when you hit 100, that's it. But that doesn't mean it's it. You go for aid and attendance. At that point you don't just file another claim to increase a 100 to what it's already at 100. Now it's time to start talking to SMC, not an increase on a 100% rating. It's insane. Those are attorneys doing it. I'm not going to tell you the name of them, but if you took raspberry and got rid of the word raz, you might have a good idea of who it was. So that's who he's using for his new legal help. God help him. They still have. They filed him for six increases and they still haven't started talking about SMC yet what's that group out there in San Francisco, Morris and Forrester?

Alex Graham: 59:09

they are a pretty good outfit. They did the very first extraordinary writ for, oh God, I'm going to think of his name, the father of extraordinary writs at the court Erspammer Yep. They represented him for pro bono. They represented his wife, actually, after he passed.

J Basser: 59:34

We've got the website straightened out, because it's kind of hard looking for attorneys on a website to see something come across there called mofocom.

Alex Graham: 59:40

So tell me about this new show before we wind this thing up. So are you doing this just for you, me and Ray on these things, and then you put them up on your site for viewing by readership later?

J Basser: 59:58

No, this is automatic and it goes on the site, it broadcasts on the site, it goes on the page and it's on there and after I do a couple of things at the end of the show it goes into the file. It's uploaded. But this is a live broadcast. Way cool, this is a live broadcast.

Alex Graham: 1:00:14

Way cool, I love to talk. I love talking at board hearings, face-to-face with that judge about four feet away. I call that bayonet distance. I can skewer him and get his complete attention. That's one of the. I appreciate you Go ahead.

J Basser: 1:00:33

I appreciate you coming on. We're out of time, but I wanted to thank you and we'll do this again soon, because you always bring it. Every time you come on, you bring everything, you bring the good. You know we call you Mr Dependability and it's always a changing system, but you're on top of it.

Alex Graham: 1:00:51

Well, it's a changing system. You got to stay up on it or you're going to be left behind. A changing system You've got to stay up on it or you're going to be left behind. I've learned so much doing this over 35, 36 years. I keep having to change my attack plan, but I don't quit attacking.

J Basser: 1:01:10

Don't stop attacking. You can always take the tail section off the plane with a prop. I saw that the other day.

Alex Graham: 1:01:21

Well, I like to say that I don't practice law, I perform it.

J Basser: 1:01:27

Well, that's good. You're not an ammo chaser either, because you don't look like Danny DeVito.

Alex Graham: 1:01:36

Well, thank you very much for inviting me on, John.

J Basser: 1:01:39

I appreciate it, buddy. Thank you very much.

Alex Graham: 1:01:41

I'd be more than happy to do this anytime you feel the urge to call. If I come out there in Nashville, I'd like to. You're not that far away from that, are you? Or in Kentucky?

J Basser: 1:01:56

Yeah, probably about three hours.

Alex Graham: 1:01:58

Oh shit.

J Basser: 1:02:00

You need to buy them some. You never know. It could be a road trip, you never know.

Alex Graham: 1:02:04

Get a Cessna 172 or something.

J Basser: 1:02:08

No, I've got a Learjet, okay.

Alex Graham: 1:02:15

Well, I'm going to go out and beat my horses because I know they're chomping at the bit.

J Basser: 1:02:21

All right. Well, I appreciate you coming on, we appreciate it and folks, thanks for listening to the show. We'll have another guest on next week, so please stay tuned. And this is John on behalf of Mr Alex Graham and the Exposed Vet Productions show. We'll be signing off for now. Thank you, john, all right.