April 10, 2025 • 58 mins
Alex Graham joins us fresh from the NOVA Conference in Minneapolis to share insights about veterans' claims and the evolving landscape of VA benefits advocacy.
• VA computer systems often reject valid benefit combinations like dual aid and attendance awards
• The VA M21 Manual is treated like biblical law despite changing 135+ times per year
• Recent Loper ruling shifts power from VA Secretary to judges for interpreting regulations
• C&P exams increasingly conducted by under-qualified contractors making determinations outside their expertise
• "Claim sharks" lacking accreditation are entering the advocacy space, potentially harming veterans with inadequate representation
• NOVA provides a collaborative environment where advocates share knowledge rather than competing
• Expanding advocacy practices require careful transitions and proper training
• Reports of VA cutting 80,000 positions actually impact only about 5,000 veteran employees
Tune in live every Thursday at 7 PM EST and join the conversation! Click here to listen and chat with us.
Visit J Basser's Exposed Vet Productions (Formerly Exposed Vet Radioshow) YouTube page by clicking here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
J Basser (00:03):
Welcome, folks, to another episode of the Exposed
Red Productions on thisbeautiful 10th day of April 2025
.
Today we have Mr Ray Cobb.
He's our co-host down in thegreat state of Tennessee Dodging
thunderstorms right now, but Ithink he's doing okay.
(00:25):
How you doing, ray?
Ray Cobb (00:26):
I'm doing great.
How are we doing?
J Basser (00:29):
Oh, we're hanging like a hair in a biscuit.
Today we've got a treat for youguys.
We got the Fresh Off the NovaConference in the big city of
Minneapolis, St Paul.
He just got back.
He's got a little bit of jetlag going on.
Alex Graham (00:49):
He's been back throwing fighting with the va
last few days.
We got the mr alex.
Graham alex, how are you doing?
I'm doing real good, but Ithink you're pulling the leg of
your, your listeners there.
I don't have no jet lag.
That's only a two hour timedifference.
Now jet lag is when you leavefrom san francisco and you you
get off the airplane at ThompsonNewton in Vietnam.
That's a little bit of jet lag.
You're a whole day ahead ofwhere you left.
J Basser (01:10):
That's pretty sad.
When they put you on anairplane and send you to the
damn place you can't even spellno.
But I'm glad to see you backand made it in one piece and
you're all educated and ready togo.
And we've had some discussionsthis week.
You've had some issues andyou've been doing some serious
(01:32):
butt-shooting with some folks atthe VA.
I'm proud of you.
Alex Graham (01:37):
Well you know my wife tells me I've got
Tourette's Syndrome.
I open my mouth up and younever know what the hell is
going to come out.
J Basser (01:49):
Well, my wife says that too, but they've come out
with a new term.
Now we have no filter.
Alex Graham (01:54):
Oh, well, I know that Men get boxes out and they
can only have one box out at atime.
Apparently, they have to putthe lid back on, put that box
back on the shelf and get boxnumber two out.
That's one way to explain.
Women can get multiple boxesout at the same time and address
(02:19):
all of them simultaneously.
That is until I notice, untilthe pancakes start burning.
But we're not allowed to talkabout that.
J Basser (02:30):
Well, you know, everybody needs to read that
book.
And I tell you, if you'remarried, and married a long time
, you need to read that book,find out what it's all about.
You know, read the book, but no.
Alex Graham (02:44):
With the carrot feeding of wife.
J Basser (02:47):
Yeah that kind of worked.
Alex Graham (02:49):
Go ahead.
J Basser (02:50):
How'd the conference go?
Did you get some good inputinformation?
Anything going on with the OCG?
Alex Graham (02:58):
What we did get, I think, is that a group of us who
have never actually met in theflesh that did the SMC class
training that I was teaching.
We got to meet in person someof these guys and gals and
compare notes.
And something Wes McCauley andI both noticed is that by all,
(03:25):
by all appearances, it appearsas though the va considers that
the smc ladder ends at l ormaybe m, but mostly at l,
because you cannot have two l'sin their mind like two aiden
attend is obviously.
(03:46):
That to them is pyramiding.
And it became a little bit moreobvious here recently where I
got two A's and A's about abouta month ago now, about the
middle of March, and it camedown from the BVA and they all
sat there and scratched theirheads and they said, well, this
is impossible.
(04:06):
This judge is telling us togive Mr Johnny Venn here two aid
and attendances.
But we can't do that.
The machine won't let us.
It tells us it's wrong.
So they had to go talk to theirpoobahs and the head honchos
and everybody had cluck, clucklike a bunch of hens and finally
somebody says, well, let's justgo along with the judge even
(04:29):
though we know he's wrong.
That's the consensus in BBMs inthe notes section, is they had
to manually rewrite the SMCcalculator in longhand.
Almost Well, I typed it up realnice and neat, but it's not in
(04:50):
the automatically generatedformat.
You can tell somebody had tocreate it from scratch and
that's impossible.
Well, we know it's notimpossible because of Brenniser
versus Shinseki, but outside ofthat they've got their head,
their little blinders, on withthat M21.
(05:12):
And it's like the Oracle atDelphi, the golden statue.
Everybody was worshiping outthere until Moses, you know 86.
It's a computer.
It's not a 86.
It's a computer.
It's not a Bible, it's notwritten.
It changes 135 times a year.
(05:33):
So how could you rely on it?
J Basser (05:40):
They should be able to rely on it.
Alex, I'm sure that they hireand they have people in their
employment these data scientiststhat know how to write code and
things like that.
They can go in that damn systemand they can take it and they
can look at it and they canfigure out a code to make it
work.
The computer will accept that.
So why they're not doing thatis beyond me.
If they can't do it, they needto get somebody that can.
Alex Graham (06:05):
Did you ever listen to?
Maybe they don't want you to doit or they don't.
There might be somethingnefarious going on here.
Go ahead, ray.
You know what I was thinking,and I think ray might second.
This thought is those guys fromdoge or doge, the musk, the
musk.
They come in there and say waita minute, we can fix this in
(06:27):
about five seconds with a littlebit of that AI shit.
J Basser (06:29):
Yes, they can.
Alex Graham (06:31):
No, you're not allowed in here.
You don't have clearance.
Top secret crypto can't come in.
Ray Cobb (06:39):
I know a couple that do Well you know it's kind of
crazy, but I think you're right.
I think, okay, let's look at itthis way.
I was working yesterday on myweb page and and the guy that
was helping me and teaching mehow to do all this stuff and set
it up, when he found out howold I was, he says you're one of
(07:00):
the oldest guys I've ever knownthat wants to try to do a web
page.
And I thought, well, no, youknow what's wrong with that?
Nothing's wrong with it.
It's just that we have a hardertime understanding all this new
stuff.
But if we got guys that are,you know, up in the mid-50s and
early 60s sitting there makingthese decisions and they don't
(07:23):
want any help, they don't wantany of this changing in their
computer system they've beendoing for the last 10 years,
they go to a buck at it.
They're just going to say itdoesn't work and drop it at that
.
J Basser (07:38):
The more we get, the more set in our ways we get.
It's hard.
Anything new comes on.
We don't want nothing new.
We want to keep the same statusquo.
It's hard.
Anything new comes on.
We don't want nothing new.
We want to keep saying thestatus quo.
Alex Graham (07:49):
I'll tell you what.
With AI, there is no such thingas status quo or the word
static.
It's changing so fast.
It's like going from dialphones to touchstone and beyond
in 30 minutes instead of 30years.
J Basser (08:05):
Well, these guys take it and they write the code out.
And when they get the codewritten, they've got special
codes they put in there.
And I want to tell yousomething, guys, it's kind of
crazy, because they'll put acode in and it'll start doing
something, but it'll go throughthe whole system and start
learning and it teaches itself.
It's called a learning code.
It does that and it can beenormous as to what happens, you
(08:29):
know, because it's all mathanyway.
Alex Graham (08:32):
Think about this, john.
Historically, va jammed theirheels in the dirt.
They're the last agency totranspose and go from paper to
electronic.
They fought tooth and nail tokeep that paper and when they
did finally transition over,they screwed it all up.
(08:57):
They used their own IT people.
They never got anything perfect.
With VBMS about 16 or 17, theyhad to bring Microsoft company
in.
I remember that, yeah, yeah tofix it.
So if you had more than 200people on it nationwide, the
whole thing crashed.
(09:18):
I remember that it crashed.
J Basser (09:19):
Yeah, it crashed like a helicopter in Hudson Bay.
Alex Graham (09:33):
It was like dial-up .
It was bad but when they got itfixed it didn't take them six
years to get it right.
Uh, it's like this thing withuh cerner ehr electronic health
records they deploy it.
They kill 40 vets because theyforgot to call them and tell
them to come in for a CT withcontrast to check out that stage
four cancer.
Next time they get in touchwith him they go.
(09:53):
You'll have to go visit himdown at Glenwood Cemetery.
Son.
J Basser (09:59):
Hey, remember Stretch.
Alex Graham (10:02):
Well, listen, va has never been a chicken dinner
winner in the IT game and forsome reason they know that.
But they didn't know it untilrecently.
When they switched over intoAMA they changed a lot of
regulations.
They had to modify them becausethey were different from legacy
(10:25):
and every one of theseconferences I go to, everybody
says better, erase that.
On 14.632 or 6.29 or 3.303D,you got to change that.
That's wrong, but we justoverthrew that at the federal
circuit.
The VA wrote those rulesafterwards.
(10:46):
They're supposed to be thespecialists.
It disturbs me greatly to seeerror in code in 38 CFR.
Or well, it can't be in 38 USCbecause Congress has spoken.
But when you translate from USCto CFR it's got to be perfect.
(11:08):
But Loper well, chevrondeference made it all out of
shape.
But with Loper right now itbrings it back into focus, where
a judge can look at this thingand say this is how I interpret
it.
Not the secretary or the OGCsay well, this is what we meant
(11:29):
to say, this is what thesecretary really was talking
about.
So we're going to go with ourinterpretation.
Screw you, loper Bright takesthat away from the OGC and puts
it back into the CAVC'sbailiwick or perhaps even the
veterans law judges at the BVA.
(11:51):
Well, it's an earth-movingchange in our legislation.
How that's going to play out, Ithink all hinges greatly on how
adept you are at arguing at thecourt.
You've got to have that silvertongue like Ken Carpenter or
(12:12):
Zach Stoltz or Amy Odom, and Godforbid, you get a mediocre
attorney driving the boat andthat thing crashes and burns.
We're all going to get stuckwith it.
We want the best and thebrightest.
That's what I love about Nova.
There are people that askquestions.
(12:33):
They don't just accept whatpeople talk to them about.
That's where I think I make abig difference in this thing is
nobody taught me how to be anattorney.
Nobody taught me whether Icould do something or I can't do
it.
So I think it's pretty neat.
I just go do something and waitfor them to tell me I can't.
(12:57):
That's where I'm at in thisbusiness.
It's wide open.
I don't think that there is anyboundaries.
J Basser (13:07):
Personally, Well, when they overturn Chevron, you know
each one of these issues thatare overturned, you know they're
going to have to be argued incourt and it's going to take the
course to get them straightenedout.
And I don't think me, you orRay will see the results on all
the end product in our lifetimes, Because they're moving at a
(13:28):
snail, trying to drag a200-pound weight behind it.
Alex Graham (13:33):
Well look at the inroads we've made, let's say,
since I came into the picture inbig time in 2008.
You did the BVA search for3.350 to look at old cases that
mentioned special monthlycompensation.
(13:54):
There are about 13 a year Now Ido 13 a month.
Well, that's why we call you theguru well, I'll tell you what
wesley is making me look like afool.
He's using all the ai and thesearching and annotated records
(14:19):
where they just shovel them inone end it spits out you give,
put the keywords in you'relooking for and it spits it all
out.
You can do 30 bets a day whereI could do three.
But I love paper.
I'm 74.
I get to lean back a little bit, take life a little slower.
(14:42):
I don't want to lead the parade,I want to be in the parade, but
I'm not necessarily a leader.
I observe I should get thesenior professorship seat.
Not that I know a lot, but Ijust see things and it doesn't
seem right and I say how comethey're doing it that way and I
(15:05):
don't see the law that supportsit.
And when you put your thumbdown on it and you start pushing
all of a sudden, well, there isno rule that says you can't do
that, it's just that's the waywe've always done it.
Well, shit, that's been.
That's a recipe for busting itwide open in my book.
You think, man?
J Basser (15:24):
I mean that's pretty cool him doingusting it wide
open in my book.
You think, man, I mean that'spretty cool him doing that,
because I mean you look at thisAI stuff he's using.
You know and you're doing yourresearch on, you know your
briefs and things like that thatyou've got to turn into the
court and all of a sudden youknow you're talking court care.
All you've got to do is mentioncourt cases and AI goes in and
digs out what you need and comesin and puts it in your brief.
(15:44):
That's like having a secretaryand a repair.
Alex Graham (15:47):
Yeah, there's probably a lot of secretaries
got laid off.
J Basser (15:55):
Well, that's sad.
No, I'm serious.
He used it in mine.
It's pretty cool.
Alex Graham (16:00):
I have a group it's called Killer Sites and I teach
it.
I offer it to my guys that tookthe classes for SMC.
It's just little phrases thatcame out in big name cases but
they weren't necessarily themost important part of the case.
But it's a little phrase thatsupports what you're trying to
(16:24):
do and you just throw it inthere and some of them are real,
real rib jabbers and whateverit is.
It seems to work for me.
I don't know.
Like I said, I don't like towrite a brief the way I would
for the court.
I like to write it for a judgewho, a little bit less formal.
But you invoke all thatsympathy for your client.
(16:49):
I'm sure your mothers and yourgrandmothers all told you that
honey attracts bees and vinegar,don't?
I read a lot of court briefs,appellant's briefs.
I see attorneys use the phrasesthe court must find that my
client is correct in thisassumption according to this
(17:10):
regulation.
I don't do that.
I never, ever tell a judge whathe's got to do To me.
That's the quickest recipe toget a bitch laugh.
I can think of you learn how toduck.
J Basser (17:24):
You've created a monster.
You're going to learn how toduck.
You've created a monster.
Alex Graham (17:29):
Well, you know I use some interesting phrases
like but this is not the end ofthe matter, or the appellant
benefits from the simplicity ofhis argument, which most of them
do, but you have to use a wholebunch of legalese to reach that
(17:51):
point.
Mostly, I don't tell the judgethat the VA examiner at the C&P
exam must be raised by wolves orbe using his belly for a portal
.
He's got his head up the wrongplace.
I don't do that.
I don't demean them.
(18:12):
I used to.
I don't mind calling outsomebody that gets way off left
base, but I'm not adverse todoing it politely.
I guess that's the difference.
Like I said, I know law dogs,attorneys who go to law school,
and what they teach them is likea pit bull mentality in some
(18:37):
respects, but that's wrong to me.
J Basser (18:41):
Well, I look at it this way I look at my demeanor
and the more they deny medemeanor I get well, you know,
you're right, alex.
Ray Cobb (18:52):
I can remember being many, many years ago, being
young.
I remember my grandfather sayswell, you'll get more bees with
honey than anything else.
You'll get more bees with honeythan anything else, unless it's
wood bees.
Well, yeah, carpet bees, thosecarpet bees, carpet bees, yeah,
(19:14):
yeah, I mean I try to do.
James Cripps, a friend of allof us.
He tells me that I'm too laidback sometimes, but I get my
point across.
I just do it a little moretactfully than he does.
He may be he's just as correct,if not more so but I kind of
(19:35):
like making them feel a littlesorry for me, or let them think
that I may not be quite as smartas they are, make them think
they're smarter than me, and Ikeep going round and round until
they give me the answer, orwhatever it is that I'm wanting
to accomplish.
Alex Graham (19:56):
I like to get them to say something as well.
It's obvious that your clientneeds aid and attendance.
We're not debating that.
It's obvious that your clientneeds aid and attendance, we're
not debating that.
It's just he doesn't have 100%rating.
Well, I want to get that offpaper.
I want to immortalize that,because that's against the law.
It's one of the most commonmistakes.
(20:17):
They just think, for somereason and the M-21 states
states it, and this is wherethey get all these
misconceptions it says uh, inorder to, you know, get aid and
attendance, a person must have a100 schedule or rating or
something very near to it.
Meaning like 70 for ptsd mightnot get it.
(20:40):
But if you took 70 and thenanother 30% for COPD or another
60 for ischemic heart diseaseand put the two of them together
and come up with 90, that mightbe enough.
But then again, they don't liketo take two separate
disabilities and put themtogether to cause aid and
attendance.
They'll say we'll take diabetesand all the peripheral
(21:02):
neuropathy on all fourextremities, we'll call that
pretty close to it.
Or Parkinson's with 30s and 20sand 10s and 0s and 10s and 20s,
and they all add up to 90.
And they're okay.
We can give you aid andattendance, but it's wrong.
You don't have to have 100%rating, except for SMCS.
(21:25):
And I enunciate that and I loveto see it, that the judge takes
it and he says Mr Graham isentirely correct.
You only need 100 to get toSMCS, or 100 plus 60, whichever
way you want to look at it.
J Basser (21:43):
You can have 100.
Alex Graham (21:45):
But it has to be for a single disease process.
You can't do the GDIU split 40and some more for 70.
It has to be one unique process.
That's the only place, the onlyplace that you'll find that in
1114.
That's the only place, the onlyplace that you'll find that in
1114.
And I don't know how theymanaged to torture that meaning
(22:07):
out of it that you had to havethe 100.
But I love to get them to saythat and get it on paper, get it
right into the rating decision,because I can take that up to
the board.
And the only thing holding meback is if they ain't over 75,
they're going to spend 16 monthswaiting for their money every
time guaranteed win.
(22:27):
Or if you're advanced on adocket, you'll get your money in
three months, but I guaranteeyou'll get your money.
Judges are not stupid for themost part.
I mean there are a few therewho go without saying.
I don't like to burn all mybridges behind me at the board.
I know they all read my blogbecause I met three veterans law
(22:51):
judges that I know quite wellat the conferences Jim Marsh,
james Ridgeway and Brad Hennings.
They're all former judges andI've had all three of them or
sat in front of them or had themcut paper on.
All of my guys as I've gone upthere.
(23:12):
And here's a real funny story,jim Ridgeway's dad was a general
James Ridgeway.
He, the younger son my age,never went into the service.
I did, he didn't, but his dadwas a tactical air command.
Same time my dad was up atLangley Air Force Base in
(23:33):
Hampton, virginia.
They were having a cocktailparty one night and my job was
always to run around with thetray and deliver the drinks and
take the orders and I could makeyou know, two bucks an hour
doing that.
My dad would pay me to do thatand I personally know General
(23:54):
Ridgway.
James Ridgway's father drankscotch neat, occasionally with
club soda, but mostly neat and Itold James that this this last
trip.
I said, yeah, I served your dadcocktails back in 1964.
He said shut the front door,it's a, it's a small world.
(24:15):
But uh, jim marsh evenremembered me.
That made me feel good.
I argued one.
He did a travel board hearing.
I think it was in Oakland and Ibrought a guy in there for
hepatitis C, brought my jet gunand Judge Marsh, if he'd like to
roll up his sleeve, I'd showhim how the jet gun worked.
He declined, so I shot a bananawith it so I could show him how
(24:40):
it worked.
J Basser (24:43):
What happened when they looked at you and said you
work for Asnod.
I am Asnod.
Alex Graham (24:49):
Yeah, I think that was John Hager.
He says you work for Asnod.
I like John Hager.
Yeah, he's a big dude.
But you know most of these guysthat, like veterans, are
veterans.
They might have worked in uhjudge advocate general's office
putting us drunk people enlistedawol guys in jail for a week or
(25:13):
something, but you know theymet well, it was a job just like
anything else, but it's nice tosee all these judges and they
all tell me oh yeah, shit, wetalk with judges that are still
at the board.
Now we have our own littleinward face and face group,
Facebook face group or whateverclub they say oh, yeah, you read
(25:36):
that, yeah, that guy's got somepretty funny shit.
I like to think that I'mteaching future veterans, law
judges and the staff attorneyson how the SMC works, because
it's been a sea change, eventhough the regional offices
won't change their thoughts onthe subject.
(25:58):
They feel like they're givingaway the farm to give somebody
more than a K or an S.
They just refuse to do it.
And it's supposed to be.
It's supposed to be just like Isay it is.
It's like does this guy, doeshe need help?
Yeah, he does.
Let's give him the money.
(26:19):
Why does he have to fight sixyears to get it?
J Basser (26:23):
So what happened to the old adage where if a veteran
follows a claim and you have toadjudicate his claim, he has to
write a 10 or something likethat?
You know, if he's got therequirements for it then
basically they say that they'resupposed to maximize the
veterans' benefit when availableright.
Alex Graham (26:43):
Yeah, that's what 3.103 says.
You've got to give them themost that you can possibly give
them, without giving away thefarm and cheating to give them
the money, and that would benormal.
You shouldn't have to fight andbeg and get down on all fours
and say, please, it shouldn't be.
Well, you know you were stupidenough to raise your right hand
(27:06):
to begin with, graham, andtherefore we're going to give
you the benefit of the doubt andwe're going to give you the
money because you know youearned it.
We told you we'd take care ofyou when you got to this point
in your life.
We'd take care of you when yougot to this point in your life
If you needed it.
You shouldn't have to have tojump through hoops, pay $2,000,
(27:31):
$3,000, or $10,000 to somedoctor in Maryland to get an IMO
.
That's it.
You're screwed up.
I mean you should be able to goto a C&P exam.
They should look at you and say, dude, you're screwed up.
It should be.
Why is it so difficult?
Why does a VeteransAdministration C&P clinician
look at you and say this guycould run the Boston Marathon?
(27:52):
I don't see a problem here.
He's wearing ankle footorthotics, he's got Canadian
crutches and he falls down as hecomes through the door and the
examiner's looking at him likequit faking it, get up here.
J Basser (28:13):
I don't get it.
Yeah, that's one thing I got tolook at because I mean they're
using these companies to do theC&P exams and you know, I've had
several of them over the pastcouple of years and I've only
had one or over the past coupleof years, and I've only had one
or two examiners that actuallyknew what they were doing, you
know, and I'm sure they saidthey were trained, because you
know they got a certificate.
They were trained by the VA,you know.
And then knowing some peoplethat know these C&P exams and
(28:37):
you know like clockwork, likeyou know, like Bethany for
example, you know how they'resupposed to do things.
It's a little bit different howthey actually do it and you
know, and they're contracted out, and so I think it's kind of a
sometimes you get lucky, othertimes I don't know what's going
(28:58):
on.
But I mean there's some peoplethat should have had a positive
opinion but they received anegative opinion over something
stupid.
So it's just, I mean, to meit's not fair.
I think they should start doingCMPs back in the VA again.
Alex Graham (29:10):
Well, anytime you try to run a guy through a
gauntlet of six independentmedical opinions, all from one
family nurse practitioner, nodoctors in sight in the office
anywhere.
Those people are supposed to besupervised by a doctor by
(29:33):
rights.
And you see these people and itsays FNP, family nurse
practitioner and it might haveMBA after it means they took
another six months.
J Basser (29:45):
And get a measure in business administration.
Alex Graham (29:47):
Yeah, and you get another attar boy and I was
their medal on their chest.
But the thing that distressesme is sometimes they'll go into
questions like, for instance, ona Parkinson's exam, and start
talking about your neurologicalcognitive deficits.
(30:08):
This is an area, technically,that can only be touched on by a
psychiatrist or a purelyPTSD-ish kind of item, and they
touch on psychiatric issues.
Again, that's a psychologist,Bailey Wick.
Where does an FNP or even a PACfit into that?
(30:33):
They don't.
It's against the law.
And the more you bitch about it,the more they say well, yeah,
but these people have gone toclass and they've been trained.
It's like, yeah, they went toAlex's SMC class, they know all
about SMC and how to do it.
Well, I think that you know,going to become a psychologist
(30:55):
or a psychiatrist or whatever itis, that is a much higher
calling in eight, 10 yearsrather than a two-year degree in
something.
So I think they've cheapenedthe process.
That's one of the reasons why Iuse MedNIC.
They don't monkey around man.
They've got guys that are 65years old and they've got a
(31:18):
string of letters after theirname, about two or three lines
across F-A-C-C, M-D-G, B-R-A.
I'm sure they all meansomething, but apparently they
mean more to the judges thanthey mean to me, but it works.
J Basser (31:36):
Well, the credentials, actually, you know, the
pedigree is what it's all about.
Well, the credential isactually, you know.
Alex Graham (31:42):
I mean, you know, the pedigree is what it's all
about.
Well, the shit list reallyexposed the difference between
real and false.
It shined a light.
I hope you know.
I hope it didn't put anybodyout of business.
But if they're doing somethingthat nefarious and just selling
an IMO not performing a realmedical process, it just
(32:04):
achievements the whole deal.
It means nothing for somebodyto say something.
The credentials are gone,meaningless.
That's what you see with theseclaim sharks.
They all have their ownin-house under the same address,
where you go in there and youmeet, you sign the contract and
(32:27):
they just take you sideways intoanother room.
A guy sits with you for 25minutes, cranks up 15 ideas of
how he can make some money andget you 100%.
You win and boom, you pay a tonof money six months or whatever
they can get you.
Well, and it hurts becausethey're not accredited.
(32:49):
We have to go to school, weknow what's legal and what isn't
, and they want to get into thegame and they're trying to
induce senators and congressmento go along with this and say,
oh, come on, can't we all justget along?
Let's just change the rules soall of us can be in this
business together.
We don't need any classes orany training.
(33:10):
Well, that's going to reallyscrew things up.
In my book, Veterans are notgoing to get a fair shake.
The VA is going to look at asuspect IMO that a guy has paid
good money for it's useless, andthey can see that At least the
(33:31):
system right now is above boardthe way NOVA is operating it.
We've got some tight laws.
You don't want to step on yournecktie in this business and
lose your accreditation.
Was that a?
J Basser (33:51):
doorbell.
No, that's ours.
Alex Graham (33:53):
Go ahead, we get people coming in okay well,
anyway, that's my story and I'mgoing to stick with it.
I like Nova, I don't mindpaying the going to stick with
it.
I like Nova, I don't mindpaying the money to go to these
conventions.
I get to meet Ken Carpenter,bob Hedge with him, robert
Chisholm, amy Odom All thesebrand-name people are right
there and they're more thanwilling to talk to you.
They don't have their nose wayup in the cloud because they're
(34:16):
important.
J Basser (34:22):
They're my kind of people.
Alex Graham (34:38):
That's what it takes.
So anyway, that's one of thethings we found that we achieve
a lot more as a group by sharingall of our knowledge.
It's not like somebody comes upwith a cheap parlor trick or a
new hat trick and doesn't shareit with his fellow litigators.
That's what makes NOVA sovaluable, fellow litigators.
(34:59):
That's what makes NOVA sovaluable.
We're not competing with theguy that got hit in the
intersection, the pedestrian inthe crosswalk.
We're not all knocking eachother down trying to say here's
my business card, hire me.
J Basser (35:14):
There's not enough of us.
This reminds me of old DanaDeVito what's that movie with?
He would sneak into thehospital and sign up the
patients while they're in thebed with their broken legs.
We had some information I don'tknow how accurate it is.
(35:34):
We were talking about theseclaim sharks itself.
Somebody said that one of thereasons they came into existence
was because there was a lot ofmistakes made with a lot of
veterans claims made by I'm notgoing to name any organizations,
but it's not agents and, uh,these people made a lot of
(35:55):
mistakes and things like that.
These veterans got screwed up alot of money and kind of got
straightened out within severalyears.
So a couple of these guysrealized what was going on when
they kind of jumped in andstarted doing this.
Alex Graham (36:08):
Well, there was a gal who worked for VA.
She was a TRO.
I won't mention any names,nothing could be gained from it,
but they had an outfit thatthey were running out of the
Cayman Islands and they had astorefront in Florida and they
were getting quite a few people,mostly Hispanic, puerto Rican,
(36:36):
latinos, if you will.
And it's not that it's justthey felt underrepresented in
the business Not that they wereor they weren't, but perhaps it
was a language barrier.
But these people defeated thatfor the most part and they set
the whole process up for whatactually is now a Claim Sharks
(37:00):
model.
And there's a new one openingup just about every day or every
month you see a new one.
But you know a lot of themdon't know what they're doing,
which is disturbing.
They just want to get intobusiness because they think
there's a lot of easy money init.
One thing that struck me is Ihad a guy come to me and beg me
(37:22):
to take his claim.
He already had aid andattendance, he was aiming for
SMCT and I got his.
I was all set to pull the plug,or, you know, plug him in and
take this power of attorney, andall of a sudden somebody else
told me something.
He says well, that sounds likethe name of the guy that's just
(37:45):
set up a website for that StolenValor stuff.
It's called Blue Cord Patriots.
And I said, oh no, thatcouldn't be.
I Googled it and here comesthis beautiful website up about
11 Bravo, 10s and the blue four.
And here's the names of thethree guys that are running it,
(38:09):
and one of they're all threevets, of course veterans and
one's the name of the guy that'scoming to me for tea.
And I thought that well, that'skind of strange, and so I
emailed it back.
I says, well, that's kind ofstrange.
So I emailed him back.
I said, well, what's the gamehere?
You've got your own game planhere, your own business, but
you're asking me to do yourclaim for you.
(38:30):
He says, well, I don't know howto do T.
Oh, I say, so I'm going to getyou T and you're going to use my
template to start helping otherguys get T.
No, I'm not going to do that.
I don't know necessarily thatyou're entitled to SMCT and from
the way you're describing it,you just want to learn my
technique.
(38:50):
I dropped him like a hot potato.
He ran to a couple of differentother people at Nova and they
had all been forewarned.
As forearms, you can Googleblue-collar patriots to find out
.
They're still in business.
I don't know.
Maybe they are, maybe theypancaked right after that.
But it's an art form.
(39:13):
It took me five years to learnhow to do an SMC claim and to
understand the mechanics of it.
An SMC claim and to understandthe mechanics of it and it's
taken me even that longerperhaps, to understand that that
how that 3.156 C works, where Idig that perfect punji pit and
I stick them little bamboospears in there with tender
(39:35):
loving care, put the bananaleaves on top of it, spread the
leaves over the top of that andhide that pit, and they'll just
sit there and tell that VA guyto come at me.
Come on, hit me with your bestshot, walk him right into that
pit.
J Basser (39:51):
You missed a step, Alex.
You forgot you had to take apaintbrush and paint snake venom
on each one of them well, I'lltell you my whole approach to va
claims, as you know, is mycombat experience.
Alex Graham (40:11):
I think, like, I think, like.
I want three to one airsuperior, air superiority, three
to one, uh, tactical advantagein terms of personnel and
superior firepower, and plentyof it.
I plan it that way.
I don't ever go in there withgee.
I hope I can win, or gee, Ihope I can blow enough smoke up
(40:32):
that judge's rear end to give methe benefit of the doubt.
I go in there with a solid gameplan.
I've gotten to the point whereI don't need a truth meter to
tell when I've got a clientthat's pulling my leg or trying
to go too far or try to get toomuch.
J Basser (40:53):
You know, it happens right now.
Ray Cobb (40:57):
Yeah, we have.
And you're right, Alex, itdoesn't take a.
If you know the system, evenhalfway, it doesn't take a whole
lot to figure out what a guy istrying to get something that he
doesn't deserve.
You know, by the way he makesup his story, by the way he says
(41:19):
things.
You know.
I remember the guy I workedwith was talking to him.
He asked me what time it was.
I told him it was 11.30, 12.30his time.
He says I got to go.
I got a tee time at 2 o'clock.
That guy didn't have kneeproblems and lower back problems
.
Alex Graham (41:37):
If he's going to go out and play golf two and three
days a week, yeah, Well, I hada guy that had gotten a SMCL and
he had legitimate well,apparently legitimate criteria.
He was pushing me to take himto T and I'm looking at his VVMS
(42:02):
file and I see he's gettingVR&E training and he wants to go
into third-year Farsi language.
And I'm thinking to myself thisguy is supposed to have major
mental complications and he'sdoing VR&E in college.
That doesn't make any sense.
How does he get to college?
(42:23):
Does his wife take him there?
Does she walk him in and plunkhim down on the desk?
This guy is just disabled.
How could he be doing this?
I started digging around alittle bit more and then all of
a sudden, the VA comes down onhim.
And this was right.
When I first took the power ofattorney, the first thing they
did is they come in and whackedhim back, took away his aid and
(42:48):
attendance.
It's all of a sudden I'mfighting a restoration of
benefits claim instead of tryingto get him to T.
I'm on the defensive.
When I saw that VR and thesestuff, I had to call him out on
it.
I says you know, son, I can'twrap my head around how disabled
you are and you're still goingto college on this thing.
(43:08):
You're going to have to findsomebody else to represent you.
I can't, in good faith, do that.
J Basser (43:15):
I let him go.
Usually, if it's bad enough,under VR&E, they won't let you
go to college.
They won't give you independentliving.
Alex Graham (43:22):
You know what I mean well I expected I never
even looked at it.
I just saw the vr and e 45 pmthings sitting there and I I
didn't look at him.
I figured he was trying to dothe ilp program.
I honestly didn't till I dug inthere and I saw that thing
where they turned him down forthird-year Farsi language
credits.
(43:43):
Wait a minute, I have a hardtime remembering French from 50
years ago.
My Laotian is a little rustyright now.
I'm not ready for that.
I don't think I'd try it, evenwith an SMCS.
(44:03):
I don't know.
I know there's people that gamethe system.
I think I'm lucky that Ihaven't attracted them to ask.
Not, most of the guys that cometo me are, I mean, messed up.
I got this one fellow I'mrepresenting right now and he
says say, the rest of the guysthat were in my squad want to
(44:27):
know if you'll represent themtoo.
I go well, how many more are wetalking about?
He says well, there were six ofus in the MRAP, but the guy in
the turret got killed when itblew us off the road.
Well, he hit the IEDs IEDsplural.
Yeah, there was two of them,man, it messed us up.
(44:47):
Good, the other five guys wantto join in and I'm honored to do
that.
Personally, I've done a coupleof different groups.
You know I do the Long RangeReconnaissance Patrol guys, I do
the Vietnam dust-off pilots andthere's another couple of
smaller groups of two or threeeach but they keep referring me
(45:12):
out again and again and again.
So it's getting to be about thefourth generation now.
But I know that these guys arelegitimate.
They've got ARCOMs with V's onthem, purple Hearts and combat
action infantrymen badges.
So that's kind of their stockand trade and I don't mind
(45:37):
representing them because Idon't have to be looking over my
shoulder and making sure I'mnot representing some guy for
stolen valor or worse.
J Basser (45:47):
We know Alex is very busy.
I mean, he's probably one ofthe busiest agents in the
country and, yes, he can't takeevery claim but he has a good
network.
If he looks for information hecan actually refer you to
somebody that you know that hetrusts.
You know that can actually helpout.
(46:08):
So you know it's all.
You know it all comes out.
Alex Graham (46:12):
Well, I did hire an attorney, john.
I don't know if I mentionedthat to you.
Her name's Amanda Menear andshe's been working for me since
November.
She's been working for me sinceNovember, taking a lot of my
overload on when somebody callsand says well, it's just, you're
not that disabled.
So you know my triage techniqueonly the guys are dying or dead
(46:35):
or the spouses are crying onthe phone.
Those are the ones that get me.
So I've turned a lot of themover to Amanda, but there's
still so many that I have tohand out even more.
I don't mind being aclearinghouse, and my wife,
known to all as Cupcake Debbie,is studying for the test right
(46:57):
now herself, and her managingbroker, the gal that usually
takes over Debbie's real estatebusiness.
When we go out on a road tripor go off to conferences, we
have to have somebody in commandof the real estate company at
all times.
By law.
So that gal her name is Niven.
(47:21):
She's also training for thetest.
So hopefully I'll have two moreemployees working underneath my
POA code, you know, within ayear, year and a half.
So that's got a great future.
I'd love to save more people.
I'd love to help more people,but, damn, I'm 74,.
J Basser (47:41):
Joe.
Well, Doug just posted the examdates.
This year.
There's three more tests.
One's going pretty quick.
Alex Graham (47:53):
Well, back when we were doing it, you had two shots
a year.
If you flunked it you had towait you know that six months to
get to it again, but I thinkthey're more frequent now.
I don't know.
J Basser (48:09):
Yeah, they're more frequent and a lot more people
are taking it.
Alex Graham (48:14):
That one I took was 97 questions and you had to get
75% correct and I aced thething, according to the gal that
called me up to tell me aboutit, but I think I've seen it go
down as low as 47 questions andone time it was 27.
So it's always changing.
There might be, but then againthere's a lot more to learn,
(48:36):
because I think you 'd stillhave to learn the legacy system,
because there's still a few ofthose cases still going.
I think I'm down to about oneor two.
One of them's up at the courtright now.
J Basser (48:53):
Well, the PACT Act and all the other stuff's come
along and all the changes youknow and.
But pay the truth In order tobe an agent.
If you have a hard copy of themanual, okay, and you have to
update that truth in order to bean agent.
If you have a hard copy of themanual, okay, and you have to
update that copy.
These changes are coming so farand fast and furious that you
have to have a full-timesecretary.
Just implement the changes init.
Alex Graham (49:13):
The N21 is not printed, it's purely an
electronic creation and itchanges, as I know, 135 times.
At least that was one year Inoticed that it had that many
changes, but sometimes it hasmore than that.
But look at the precedents upat the court at the federal
(49:34):
circuit, like Barry and AlaskaDuran and some of these other
things.
They changed law so drasticallythat the M M21 not only has a
do this, don't do that, butthere's a lot of cascading
effect into other parts of theM21 that when you change this it
(49:54):
compounds it with interest overhere someplace else.
So it isn't that easy to fix,to just change a little
paragraph somewhere what's therule?
J Basser (50:07):
every equal reaction has an opposite reaction yes,
sir, that's exactly right.
Alex Graham (50:14):
You go through VA life as a VA agent.
You want to be an irresistibleforce.
You want to be a.
J Basser (50:23):
You want to be an irresistible force.
You want to be a good tank witha good flamethrower.
You know what I mean.
Alex Graham (50:33):
Well, I had a real attitude about that when I was
over there.
I carried two hand grenades inmy cargo pocket down here
Everywhere I went, in additionto a .357 Magnum.
I have great faith in handgrenades in my cargo pocket down
here Everywhere I went, inaddition to a .357 Magnum.
I have great faith in handgrenades.
But you know, the DuPontNemours got the contract for the
M26s.
(50:53):
They were the cheapest bidder.
That's why you need two, justin case.
J Basser (51:00):
That's why the Japanese soldiers in New Guinea
in World War II, they forgot totake their hand grenades with
them and they tried to crossthese little lakes to get to the
other side.
Well, it was one of the biggestmass casualties of the Japanese
soldiers.
Alex Graham (51:13):
Without a shot being fired at them, all these
crocodiles started eating themwell, we ferried in a group of
six special forces group into HoChi Minh Trail.
One day in August we landed sixdifferent little airstrips and
they got out at airstrip numberfour.
(51:33):
We still hit five and six justto confuse the enemy, so they
wouldn't know where we'd letthem off at.
And they were carrying cases ofhand grenades.
And when they got we pickedthem up about a week later and
brought them back in.
We were sitting out behind thebarracks drinking beer.
After they got back Not theofficers of course, but the
(51:55):
enlisted guys I said I know youguys aren't supposed to tell us
what y'all was doing.
I said what were you doing?
They said, well, I guess Idon't mind telling you this is,
we are special effects guys.
Open them things up realcareful and take them hand
grenades out and rotate theprussic acts of fuse where you
pull the pin and the bail flipsoff and the hand grenade goes
(52:17):
off.
So it kind of screws up theirmorale because nobody wants to
use hand grenades, becausethey're afraid they're going to
blow themselves up with them.
So yeah, that was kind of aninteresting psychiatric
operation to destroy theirmorale.
And apparently they did it withthe 7.62 Browns for the AKs and
(52:43):
the SKSs.
They load that thing chock fullof lead, azite and when that
primer hits the end of thatround, the whole gun blows up in
their face.
It gets to the point wherethey're a little gun-shy about
it.
Every time they pull thetrigger they flinch a little bit
, so their aim's off a littlegun shy about.
Every time they pull thetrigger they flinch a little bit
(53:04):
, so their aim's off.
J Basser (53:05):
That can remind me of recent activity over in the
Middle East, there with pagers,oh well yeah, we might have
copied the Mozart, but I neverheard of doing anything like
that.
Alex Graham (53:19):
But I thought it was intriguing that they spent a
lot of time salting down the HoChi Minh Trail with munitions
that were a little bit suspect.
J Basser (53:29):
Yeah.
Alex Graham (53:34):
War is hell, but combat is something entirely
different.
J Basser (53:39):
Nubious.
You know, I mean we got somereally smart people coming up
with this stuff and theyactually carry it out.
You know it's a gap thing.
World War II was the worst warman.
Alex Graham (53:51):
Well, the last thing I was going to tell you
all today is I was reading someimportant articles and I read
one and this wasn't by DougCollins, the new VA secretary.
It was somebody else making anobservation that the VA was
getting ready to get rid of80,000 employees that were
(54:12):
surplus people, hr helpingveterans get to a hospital or
get better service or moredoctors, more psychiatrists.
They were just going to get ridof too many people that didn't
(54:34):
have a functional purpose andthey said, yeah, but they're all
veterans.
And it turns out of those80,000 people, only 5,000 of
them are veterans, and thatchanges the whole timber of the
conversation.
If it was all, 80,000 of themwere all veterans, I would be
(54:54):
strongly against that.
I would think why don't wetriage this somehow and keep the
most disabled veterans that wecan in jobs to keep them
occupied?
It's a good thing to getdisabled people out in public.
It helps them mentally, I knowthat.
But I thought the numbers aregoing to be far higher than 5
(55:18):
000 veterans involved in thisthat might lose their jobs.
So it disturbs me greatly toread the newspapers or or listen
to the news at six o'clock,because sometimes it's a little
bit more slanted.
I think that fox is slanted, Ithink that they're all slanted.
But I I have to realize thatthere's a lot of mistruths being
(55:44):
populated out there.
We have to cut back.
We're spending money likedrunken sailors and some of
these programs are squanderingmoney on.
It appalls me, I can't wrap mybrain around it.
But I think you can cut toomuch.
But I haven't seen too much yet.
(56:05):
For everything I've seen therehasn't been enough.
Ray Cobb (56:10):
Well, Alex, when we get a chance, I'll tell you
about the VA spending $1,200 toget me a $5 rubber ball.
J Basser (56:29):
Well, he spent about 2.5 million dollars trying to
keep me out of my greenhouse,and you got the other finished
construction now, so is it readyto go?
Alex Graham (56:36):
yeah, we had a hard time finding anybody who wanted
to be a general contractor.
We didn't feel like paying them$200 an hour to sit there and
watch, so we renewed our oldcontractor's license.
I gave it up in 2012 when I gottoo ill and my son-in-law
started a whole new company.
But we just renewed ours justto do the greenhouse, and then
(56:59):
we'll let it die out again.
J Basser (57:03):
It's like a winter to me.
Alex Graham (57:05):
Well, it solves the purpose of somebody being the
go-to guy.
That's what the VA wants oneperson to talk to, not 16
subcontractors for concreteelectrical plumbing.
J Basser (57:20):
I know that's a headache.
Well, guys, I hate to say this,but all good things must come
to an end.
Alex, thanks for the update.
We appreciate everything you doand we'll have you back on real
soon to have another goodshindig.
This single moscotch is for you.
You probably got horses thatare getting ready to eat.
(57:41):
Yes, I do, ray.
Thank you for coming on.
We appreciate you, buddy, Ienjoyed it.
Guys, we got some changescoming up here.
We're going to go back to livebroadcast, hopefully here in the
next few weeks.
We're going to do some trialsand errors and see how it works
out, with Bethany here startingthe next couple of days.
Once we get it worked out,we'll still be doing them on
(58:03):
Zoom, but there'll be anotherformat.
You can broadcast, listen tothe live shows, but with that, I
want to thank everybody forlistening.
This is John, on behalf of theExposed Vet Productions Mr Ray
Cobb and John Stacy they callhim Jay Basher and Mr Alex
Graham.
We'll be signing off for now.
Alex Graham (58:20):
Thanks, John.
J Basser (58:21):
See you all later.
Welcome, folks, to another episode of the Exposed
Red Productions on thisbeautiful 10th day of April 2025
.
Today we have Mr Ray Cobb.
He's our co-host down in thegreat state of Tennessee Dodging
thunderstorms right now, but Ithink he's doing okay.
(00:25):
How you doing, ray?
Ray Cobb (00:26):
I'm doing great.
How are we doing?
J Basser (00:29):
Oh, we're hanging like a hair in a biscuit.
Today we've got a treat for youguys.
We got the Fresh Off the NovaConference in the big city of
Minneapolis, St Paul.
He just got back.
He's got a little bit of jetlag going on.
Alex Graham (00:49):
He's been back throwing fighting with the va
last few days.
We got the mr alex.
Graham alex, how are you doing?
I'm doing real good, but Ithink you're pulling the leg of
your, your listeners there.
I don't have no jet lag.
That's only a two hour timedifference.
Now jet lag is when you leavefrom san francisco and you you
get off the airplane at ThompsonNewton in Vietnam.
That's a little bit of jet lag.
You're a whole day ahead ofwhere you left.
J Basser (01:10):
That's pretty sad.
When they put you on anairplane and send you to the
damn place you can't even spellno.
But I'm glad to see you backand made it in one piece and
you're all educated and ready togo.
And we've had some discussionsthis week.
You've had some issues andyou've been doing some serious
(01:32):
butt-shooting with some folks atthe VA.
I'm proud of you.
Alex Graham (01:37):
Well you know my wife tells me I've got
Tourette's Syndrome.
I open my mouth up and younever know what the hell is
going to come out.
J Basser (01:49):
Well, my wife says that too, but they've come out
with a new term.
Now we have no filter.
Alex Graham (01:54):
Oh, well, I know that Men get boxes out and they
can only have one box out at atime.
Apparently, they have to putthe lid back on, put that box
back on the shelf and get boxnumber two out.
That's one way to explain.
Women can get multiple boxesout at the same time and address
(02:19):
all of them simultaneously.
That is until I notice, untilthe pancakes start burning.
But we're not allowed to talkabout that.
J Basser (02:30):
Well, you know, everybody needs to read that
book.
And I tell you, if you'remarried, and married a long time
, you need to read that book,find out what it's all about.
You know, read the book, but no.
Alex Graham (02:44):
With the carrot feeding of wife.
J Basser (02:47):
Yeah that kind of worked.
Alex Graham (02:49):
Go ahead.
J Basser (02:50):
How'd the conference go?
Did you get some good inputinformation?
Anything going on with the OCG?
Alex Graham (02:58):
What we did get, I think, is that a group of us who
have never actually met in theflesh that did the SMC class
training that I was teaching.
We got to meet in person someof these guys and gals and
compare notes.
And something Wes McCauley andI both noticed is that by all,
(03:25):
by all appearances, it appearsas though the va considers that
the smc ladder ends at l ormaybe m, but mostly at l,
because you cannot have two l'sin their mind like two aiden
attend is obviously.
(03:46):
That to them is pyramiding.
And it became a little bit moreobvious here recently where I
got two A's and A's about abouta month ago now, about the
middle of March, and it camedown from the BVA and they all
sat there and scratched theirheads and they said, well, this
is impossible.
(04:06):
This judge is telling us togive Mr Johnny Venn here two aid
and attendances.
But we can't do that.
The machine won't let us.
It tells us it's wrong.
So they had to go talk to theirpoobahs and the head honchos
and everybody had cluck, clucklike a bunch of hens and finally
somebody says, well, let's justgo along with the judge even
(04:29):
though we know he's wrong.
That's the consensus in BBMs inthe notes section, is they had
to manually rewrite the SMCcalculator in longhand.
Almost Well, I typed it up realnice and neat, but it's not in
(04:50):
the automatically generatedformat.
You can tell somebody had tocreate it from scratch and
that's impossible.
Well, we know it's notimpossible because of Brenniser
versus Shinseki, but outside ofthat they've got their head,
their little blinders, on withthat M21.
(05:12):
And it's like the Oracle atDelphi, the golden statue.
Everybody was worshiping outthere until Moses, you know 86.
It's a computer.
It's not a 86.
It's a computer.
It's not a Bible, it's notwritten.
It changes 135 times a year.
(05:33):
So how could you rely on it?
J Basser (05:40):
They should be able to rely on it.
Alex, I'm sure that they hireand they have people in their
employment these data scientiststhat know how to write code and
things like that.
They can go in that damn systemand they can take it and they
can look at it and they canfigure out a code to make it
work.
The computer will accept that.
So why they're not doing thatis beyond me.
If they can't do it, they needto get somebody that can.
Alex Graham (06:05):
Did you ever listen to?
Maybe they don't want you to doit or they don't.
There might be somethingnefarious going on here.
Go ahead, ray.
You know what I was thinking,and I think ray might second.
This thought is those guys fromdoge or doge, the musk, the
musk.
They come in there and say waita minute, we can fix this in
(06:27):
about five seconds with a littlebit of that AI shit.
J Basser (06:29):
Yes, they can.
Alex Graham (06:31):
No, you're not allowed in here.
You don't have clearance.
Top secret crypto can't come in.
Ray Cobb (06:39):
I know a couple that do Well you know it's kind of
crazy, but I think you're right.
I think, okay, let's look at itthis way.
I was working yesterday on myweb page and and the guy that
was helping me and teaching mehow to do all this stuff and set
it up, when he found out howold I was, he says you're one of
(07:00):
the oldest guys I've ever knownthat wants to try to do a web
page.
And I thought, well, no, youknow what's wrong with that?
Nothing's wrong with it.
It's just that we have a hardertime understanding all this new
stuff.
But if we got guys that are,you know, up in the mid-50s and
early 60s sitting there makingthese decisions and they don't
(07:23):
want any help, they don't wantany of this changing in their
computer system they've beendoing for the last 10 years,
they go to a buck at it.
They're just going to say itdoesn't work and drop it at that
.
J Basser (07:38):
The more we get, the more set in our ways we get.
It's hard.
Anything new comes on.
We don't want nothing new.
We want to keep the same statusquo.
It's hard.
Anything new comes on.
We don't want nothing new.
We want to keep saying thestatus quo.
Alex Graham (07:49):
I'll tell you what.
With AI, there is no such thingas status quo or the word
static.
It's changing so fast.
It's like going from dialphones to touchstone and beyond
in 30 minutes instead of 30years.
J Basser (08:05):
Well, these guys take it and they write the code out.
And when they get the codewritten, they've got special
codes they put in there.
And I want to tell yousomething, guys, it's kind of
crazy, because they'll put acode in and it'll start doing
something, but it'll go throughthe whole system and start
learning and it teaches itself.
It's called a learning code.
It does that and it can beenormous as to what happens, you
(08:29):
know, because it's all mathanyway.
Alex Graham (08:32):
Think about this, john.
Historically, va jammed theirheels in the dirt.
They're the last agency totranspose and go from paper to
electronic.
They fought tooth and nail tokeep that paper and when they
did finally transition over,they screwed it all up.
(08:57):
They used their own IT people.
They never got anything perfect.
With VBMS about 16 or 17, theyhad to bring Microsoft company
in.
I remember that, yeah, yeah tofix it.
So if you had more than 200people on it nationwide, the
whole thing crashed.
(09:18):
I remember that it crashed.
J Basser (09:19):
Yeah, it crashed like a helicopter in Hudson Bay.
Alex Graham (09:33):
It was like dial-up .
It was bad but when they got itfixed it didn't take them six
years to get it right.
Uh, it's like this thing withuh cerner ehr electronic health
records they deploy it.
They kill 40 vets because theyforgot to call them and tell
them to come in for a CT withcontrast to check out that stage
four cancer.
Next time they get in touchwith him they go.
(09:53):
You'll have to go visit himdown at Glenwood Cemetery.
Son.
J Basser (09:59):
Hey, remember Stretch.
Alex Graham (10:02):
Well, listen, va has never been a chicken dinner
winner in the IT game and forsome reason they know that.
But they didn't know it untilrecently.
When they switched over intoAMA they changed a lot of
regulations.
They had to modify them becausethey were different from legacy
(10:25):
and every one of theseconferences I go to, everybody
says better, erase that.
On 14.632 or 6.29 or 3.303D,you got to change that.
That's wrong, but we justoverthrew that at the federal
circuit.
The VA wrote those rulesafterwards.
(10:46):
They're supposed to be thespecialists.
It disturbs me greatly to seeerror in code in 38 CFR.
Or well, it can't be in 38 USCbecause Congress has spoken.
But when you translate from USCto CFR it's got to be perfect.
(11:08):
But Loper well, chevrondeference made it all out of
shape.
But with Loper right now itbrings it back into focus, where
a judge can look at this thingand say this is how I interpret
it.
Not the secretary or the OGCsay well, this is what we meant
(11:29):
to say, this is what thesecretary really was talking
about.
So we're going to go with ourinterpretation.
Screw you, loper Bright takesthat away from the OGC and puts
it back into the CAVC'sbailiwick or perhaps even the
veterans law judges at the BVA.
(11:51):
Well, it's an earth-movingchange in our legislation.
How that's going to play out, Ithink all hinges greatly on how
adept you are at arguing at thecourt.
You've got to have that silvertongue like Ken Carpenter or
(12:12):
Zach Stoltz or Amy Odom, and Godforbid, you get a mediocre
attorney driving the boat andthat thing crashes and burns.
We're all going to get stuckwith it.
We want the best and thebrightest.
That's what I love about Nova.
There are people that askquestions.
(12:33):
They don't just accept whatpeople talk to them about.
That's where I think I make abig difference in this thing is
nobody taught me how to be anattorney.
Nobody taught me whether Icould do something or I can't do
it.
So I think it's pretty neat.
I just go do something and waitfor them to tell me I can't.
(12:57):
That's where I'm at in thisbusiness.
It's wide open.
I don't think that there is anyboundaries.
J Basser (13:07):
Personally, Well, when they overturn Chevron, you know
each one of these issues thatare overturned, you know they're
going to have to be argued incourt and it's going to take the
course to get them straightenedout.
And I don't think me, you orRay will see the results on all
the end product in our lifetimes, Because they're moving at a
(13:28):
snail, trying to drag a200-pound weight behind it.
Alex Graham (13:33):
Well look at the inroads we've made, let's say,
since I came into the picture inbig time in 2008.
You did the BVA search for3.350 to look at old cases that
mentioned special monthlycompensation.
(13:54):
There are about 13 a year Now Ido 13 a month.
Well, that's why we call you theguru well, I'll tell you what
wesley is making me look like afool.
He's using all the ai and thesearching and annotated records
(14:19):
where they just shovel them inone end it spits out you give,
put the keywords in you'relooking for and it spits it all
out.
You can do 30 bets a day whereI could do three.
But I love paper.
I'm 74.
I get to lean back a little bit, take life a little slower.
(14:42):
I don't want to lead the parade,I want to be in the parade, but
I'm not necessarily a leader.
I observe I should get thesenior professorship seat.
Not that I know a lot, but Ijust see things and it doesn't
seem right and I say how comethey're doing it that way and I
(15:05):
don't see the law that supportsit.
And when you put your thumbdown on it and you start pushing
all of a sudden, well, there isno rule that says you can't do
that, it's just that's the waywe've always done it.
Well, shit, that's been.
That's a recipe for busting itwide open in my book.
You think, man?
J Basser (15:24):
I mean that's pretty cool him doingusting it wide
open in my book.
You think, man, I mean that'spretty cool him doing that,
because I mean you look at thisAI stuff he's using.
You know and you're doing yourresearch on, you know your
briefs and things like that thatyou've got to turn into the
court and all of a sudden youknow you're talking court care.
All you've got to do is mentioncourt cases and AI goes in and
digs out what you need and comesin and puts it in your brief.
(15:44):
That's like having a secretaryand a repair.
Alex Graham (15:47):
Yeah, there's probably a lot of secretaries
got laid off.
J Basser (15:55):
Well, that's sad.
No, I'm serious.
He used it in mine.
It's pretty cool.
Alex Graham (16:00):
I have a group it's called Killer Sites and I teach
it.
I offer it to my guys that tookthe classes for SMC.
It's just little phrases thatcame out in big name cases but
they weren't necessarily themost important part of the case.
But it's a little phrase thatsupports what you're trying to
(16:24):
do and you just throw it inthere and some of them are real,
real rib jabbers and whateverit is.
It seems to work for me.
I don't know.
Like I said, I don't like towrite a brief the way I would
for the court.
I like to write it for a judgewho, a little bit less formal.
But you invoke all thatsympathy for your client.
(16:49):
I'm sure your mothers and yourgrandmothers all told you that
honey attracts bees and vinegar,don't?
I read a lot of court briefs,appellant's briefs.
I see attorneys use the phrasesthe court must find that my
client is correct in thisassumption according to this
(17:10):
regulation.
I don't do that.
I never, ever tell a judge whathe's got to do To me.
That's the quickest recipe toget a bitch laugh.
I can think of you learn how toduck.
J Basser (17:24):
You've created a monster.
You're going to learn how toduck.
You've created a monster.
Alex Graham (17:29):
Well, you know I use some interesting phrases
like but this is not the end ofthe matter, or the appellant
benefits from the simplicity ofhis argument, which most of them
do, but you have to use a wholebunch of legalese to reach that
(17:51):
point.
Mostly, I don't tell the judgethat the VA examiner at the C&P
exam must be raised by wolves orbe using his belly for a portal
.
He's got his head up the wrongplace.
I don't do that.
I don't demean them.
(18:12):
I used to.
I don't mind calling outsomebody that gets way off left
base, but I'm not adverse todoing it politely.
I guess that's the difference.
Like I said, I know law dogs,attorneys who go to law school,
and what they teach them is likea pit bull mentality in some
(18:37):
respects, but that's wrong to me.
J Basser (18:41):
Well, I look at it this way I look at my demeanor
and the more they deny medemeanor I get well, you know,
you're right, alex.
Ray Cobb (18:52):
I can remember being many, many years ago, being
young.
I remember my grandfather sayswell, you'll get more bees with
honey than anything else.
You'll get more bees with honeythan anything else, unless it's
wood bees.
Well, yeah, carpet bees, thosecarpet bees, carpet bees, yeah,
(19:14):
yeah, I mean I try to do.
James Cripps, a friend of allof us.
He tells me that I'm too laidback sometimes, but I get my
point across.
I just do it a little moretactfully than he does.
He may be he's just as correct,if not more so but I kind of
(19:35):
like making them feel a littlesorry for me, or let them think
that I may not be quite as smartas they are, make them think
they're smarter than me, and Ikeep going round and round until
they give me the answer, orwhatever it is that I'm wanting
to accomplish.
Alex Graham (19:56):
I like to get them to say something as well.
It's obvious that your clientneeds aid and attendance.
We're not debating that.
It's obvious that your clientneeds aid and attendance, we're
not debating that.
It's just he doesn't have 100%rating.
Well, I want to get that offpaper.
I want to immortalize that,because that's against the law.
It's one of the most commonmistakes.
(20:17):
They just think, for somereason and the M-21 states
states it, and this is wherethey get all these
misconceptions it says uh, inorder to, you know, get aid and
attendance, a person must have a100 schedule or rating or
something very near to it.
Meaning like 70 for ptsd mightnot get it.
(20:40):
But if you took 70 and thenanother 30% for COPD or another
60 for ischemic heart diseaseand put the two of them together
and come up with 90, that mightbe enough.
But then again, they don't liketo take two separate
disabilities and put themtogether to cause aid and
attendance.
They'll say we'll take diabetesand all the peripheral
(21:02):
neuropathy on all fourextremities, we'll call that
pretty close to it.
Or Parkinson's with 30s and 20sand 10s and 0s and 10s and 20s,
and they all add up to 90.
And they're okay.
We can give you aid andattendance, but it's wrong.
You don't have to have 100%rating, except for SMCS.
(21:25):
And I enunciate that and I loveto see it, that the judge takes
it and he says Mr Graham isentirely correct.
You only need 100 to get toSMCS, or 100 plus 60, whichever
way you want to look at it.
J Basser (21:43):
You can have 100.
Alex Graham (21:45):
But it has to be for a single disease process.
You can't do the GDIU split 40and some more for 70.
It has to be one unique process.
That's the only place, the onlyplace that you'll find that in
1114.
That's the only place, the onlyplace that you'll find that in
1114.
And I don't know how theymanaged to torture that meaning
(22:07):
out of it that you had to havethe 100.
But I love to get them to saythat and get it on paper, get it
right into the rating decision,because I can take that up to
the board.
And the only thing holding meback is if they ain't over 75,
they're going to spend 16 monthswaiting for their money every
time guaranteed win.
(22:27):
Or if you're advanced on adocket, you'll get your money in
three months, but I guaranteeyou'll get your money.
Judges are not stupid for themost part.
I mean there are a few therewho go without saying.
I don't like to burn all mybridges behind me at the board.
I know they all read my blogbecause I met three veterans law
(22:51):
judges that I know quite wellat the conferences Jim Marsh,
james Ridgeway and Brad Hennings.
They're all former judges andI've had all three of them or
sat in front of them or had themcut paper on.
All of my guys as I've gone upthere.
(23:12):
And here's a real funny story,jim Ridgeway's dad was a general
James Ridgeway.
He, the younger son my age,never went into the service.
I did, he didn't, but his dadwas a tactical air command.
Same time my dad was up atLangley Air Force Base in
(23:33):
Hampton, virginia.
They were having a cocktailparty one night and my job was
always to run around with thetray and deliver the drinks and
take the orders and I could makeyou know, two bucks an hour
doing that.
My dad would pay me to do thatand I personally know General
(23:54):
Ridgway.
James Ridgway's father drankscotch neat, occasionally with
club soda, but mostly neat and Itold James that this this last
trip.
I said, yeah, I served your dadcocktails back in 1964.
He said shut the front door,it's a, it's a small world.
(24:15):
But uh, jim marsh evenremembered me.
That made me feel good.
I argued one.
He did a travel board hearing.
I think it was in Oakland and Ibrought a guy in there for
hepatitis C, brought my jet gunand Judge Marsh, if he'd like to
roll up his sleeve, I'd showhim how the jet gun worked.
He declined, so I shot a bananawith it so I could show him how
(24:40):
it worked.
J Basser (24:43):
What happened when they looked at you and said you
work for Asnod.
I am Asnod.
Alex Graham (24:49):
Yeah, I think that was John Hager.
He says you work for Asnod.
I like John Hager.
Yeah, he's a big dude.
But you know most of these guysthat, like veterans, are
veterans.
They might have worked in uhjudge advocate general's office
putting us drunk people enlistedawol guys in jail for a week or
(25:13):
something, but you know theymet well, it was a job just like
anything else, but it's nice tosee all these judges and they
all tell me oh yeah, shit, wetalk with judges that are still
at the board.
Now we have our own littleinward face and face group,
Facebook face group or whateverclub they say oh, yeah, you read
(25:36):
that, yeah, that guy's got somepretty funny shit.
I like to think that I'mteaching future veterans, law
judges and the staff attorneyson how the SMC works, because
it's been a sea change, eventhough the regional offices
won't change their thoughts onthe subject.
(25:58):
They feel like they're givingaway the farm to give somebody
more than a K or an S.
They just refuse to do it.
And it's supposed to be.
It's supposed to be just like Isay it is.
It's like does this guy, doeshe need help?
Yeah, he does.
Let's give him the money.
(26:19):
Why does he have to fight sixyears to get it?
J Basser (26:23):
So what happened to the old adage where if a veteran
follows a claim and you have toadjudicate his claim, he has to
write a 10 or something likethat?
You know, if he's got therequirements for it then
basically they say that they'resupposed to maximize the
veterans' benefit when availableright.
Alex Graham (26:43):
Yeah, that's what 3.103 says.
You've got to give them themost that you can possibly give
them, without giving away thefarm and cheating to give them
the money, and that would benormal.
You shouldn't have to fight andbeg and get down on all fours
and say, please, it shouldn't be.
Well, you know you were stupidenough to raise your right hand
(27:06):
to begin with, graham, andtherefore we're going to give
you the benefit of the doubt andwe're going to give you the
money because you know youearned it.
We told you we'd take care ofyou when you got to this point
in your life.
We'd take care of you when yougot to this point in your life
If you needed it.
You shouldn't have to have tojump through hoops, pay $2,000,
(27:31):
$3,000, or $10,000 to somedoctor in Maryland to get an IMO
.
That's it.
You're screwed up.
I mean you should be able to goto a C&P exam.
They should look at you and say, dude, you're screwed up.
It should be.
Why is it so difficult?
Why does a VeteransAdministration C&P clinician
look at you and say this guycould run the Boston Marathon?
(27:52):
I don't see a problem here.
He's wearing ankle footorthotics, he's got Canadian
crutches and he falls down as hecomes through the door and the
examiner's looking at him likequit faking it, get up here.
J Basser (28:13):
I don't get it.
Yeah, that's one thing I got tolook at because I mean they're
using these companies to do theC&P exams and you know, I've had
several of them over the pastcouple of years and I've only
had one or over the past coupleof years, and I've only had one
or two examiners that actuallyknew what they were doing, you
know, and I'm sure they saidthey were trained, because you
know they got a certificate.
They were trained by the VA,you know.
And then knowing some peoplethat know these C&P exams and
(28:37):
you know like clockwork, likeyou know, like Bethany for
example, you know how they'resupposed to do things.
It's a little bit different howthey actually do it and you
know, and they're contracted out, and so I think it's kind of a
sometimes you get lucky, othertimes I don't know what's going
(28:58):
on.
But I mean there's some peoplethat should have had a positive
opinion but they received anegative opinion over something
stupid.
So it's just, I mean, to meit's not fair.
I think they should start doingCMPs back in the VA again.
Alex Graham (29:10):
Well, anytime you try to run a guy through a
gauntlet of six independentmedical opinions, all from one
family nurse practitioner, nodoctors in sight in the office
anywhere.
Those people are supposed to besupervised by a doctor by
(29:33):
rights.
And you see these people and itsays FNP, family nurse
practitioner and it might haveMBA after it means they took
another six months.
J Basser (29:45):
And get a measure in business administration.
Alex Graham (29:47):
Yeah, and you get another attar boy and I was
their medal on their chest.
But the thing that distressesme is sometimes they'll go into
questions like, for instance, ona Parkinson's exam, and start
talking about your neurologicalcognitive deficits.
(30:08):
This is an area, technically,that can only be touched on by a
psychiatrist or a purelyPTSD-ish kind of item, and they
touch on psychiatric issues.
Again, that's a psychologist,Bailey Wick.
Where does an FNP or even a PACfit into that?
(30:33):
They don't.
It's against the law.
And the more you bitch about it,the more they say well, yeah,
but these people have gone toclass and they've been trained.
It's like, yeah, they went toAlex's SMC class, they know all
about SMC and how to do it.
Well, I think that you know,going to become a psychologist
(30:55):
or a psychiatrist or whatever itis, that is a much higher
calling in eight, 10 yearsrather than a two-year degree in
something.
So I think they've cheapenedthe process.
That's one of the reasons why Iuse MedNIC.
They don't monkey around man.
They've got guys that are 65years old and they've got a
(31:18):
string of letters after theirname, about two or three lines
across F-A-C-C, M-D-G, B-R-A.
I'm sure they all meansomething, but apparently they
mean more to the judges thanthey mean to me, but it works.
J Basser (31:36):
Well, the credentials, actually, you know, the
pedigree is what it's all about.
Well, the credential isactually, you know.
Alex Graham (31:42):
I mean, you know, the pedigree is what it's all
about.
Well, the shit list reallyexposed the difference between
real and false.
It shined a light.
I hope you know.
I hope it didn't put anybodyout of business.
But if they're doing somethingthat nefarious and just selling
an IMO not performing a realmedical process, it just
(32:04):
achievements the whole deal.
It means nothing for somebodyto say something.
The credentials are gone,meaningless.
That's what you see with theseclaim sharks.
They all have their ownin-house under the same address,
where you go in there and youmeet, you sign the contract and
(32:27):
they just take you sideways intoanother room.
A guy sits with you for 25minutes, cranks up 15 ideas of
how he can make some money andget you 100%.
You win and boom, you pay a tonof money six months or whatever
they can get you.
Well, and it hurts becausethey're not accredited.
(32:49):
We have to go to school, weknow what's legal and what isn't
, and they want to get into thegame and they're trying to
induce senators and congressmento go along with this and say,
oh, come on, can't we all justget along?
Let's just change the rules soall of us can be in this
business together.
We don't need any classes orany training.
(33:10):
Well, that's going to reallyscrew things up.
In my book, Veterans are notgoing to get a fair shake.
The VA is going to look at asuspect IMO that a guy has paid
good money for it's useless, andthey can see that At least the
(33:31):
system right now is above boardthe way NOVA is operating it.
We've got some tight laws.
You don't want to step on yournecktie in this business and
lose your accreditation.
Was that a?
J Basser (33:51):
doorbell.
No, that's ours.
Alex Graham (33:53):
Go ahead, we get people coming in okay well,
anyway, that's my story and I'mgoing to stick with it.
I like Nova, I don't mindpaying the going to stick with
it.
I like Nova, I don't mindpaying the money to go to these
conventions.
I get to meet Ken Carpenter,bob Hedge with him, robert
Chisholm, amy Odom All thesebrand-name people are right
there and they're more thanwilling to talk to you.
They don't have their nose wayup in the cloud because they're
(34:16):
important.
J Basser (34:22):
They're my kind of people.
Alex Graham (34:38):
That's what it takes.
So anyway, that's one of thethings we found that we achieve
a lot more as a group by sharingall of our knowledge.
It's not like somebody comes upwith a cheap parlor trick or a
new hat trick and doesn't shareit with his fellow litigators.
That's what makes NOVA sovaluable, fellow litigators.
(34:59):
That's what makes NOVA sovaluable.
We're not competing with theguy that got hit in the
intersection, the pedestrian inthe crosswalk.
We're not all knocking eachother down trying to say here's
my business card, hire me.
J Basser (35:14):
There's not enough of us.
This reminds me of old DanaDeVito what's that movie with?
He would sneak into thehospital and sign up the
patients while they're in thebed with their broken legs.
We had some information I don'tknow how accurate it is.
(35:34):
We were talking about theseclaim sharks itself.
Somebody said that one of thereasons they came into existence
was because there was a lot ofmistakes made with a lot of
veterans claims made by I'm notgoing to name any organizations,
but it's not agents and, uh,these people made a lot of
(35:55):
mistakes and things like that.
These veterans got screwed up alot of money and kind of got
straightened out within severalyears.
So a couple of these guysrealized what was going on when
they kind of jumped in andstarted doing this.
Alex Graham (36:08):
Well, there was a gal who worked for VA.
She was a TRO.
I won't mention any names,nothing could be gained from it,
but they had an outfit thatthey were running out of the
Cayman Islands and they had astorefront in Florida and they
were getting quite a few people,mostly Hispanic, puerto Rican,
(36:36):
latinos, if you will.
And it's not that it's justthey felt underrepresented in
the business Not that they wereor they weren't, but perhaps it
was a language barrier.
But these people defeated thatfor the most part and they set
the whole process up for whatactually is now a Claim Sharks
(37:00):
model.
And there's a new one openingup just about every day or every
month you see a new one.
But you know a lot of themdon't know what they're doing,
which is disturbing.
They just want to get intobusiness because they think
there's a lot of easy money init.
One thing that struck me is Ihad a guy come to me and beg me
(37:22):
to take his claim.
He already had aid andattendance, he was aiming for
SMCT and I got his.
I was all set to pull the plug,or, you know, plug him in and
take this power of attorney, andall of a sudden somebody else
told me something.
He says well, that sounds likethe name of the guy that's just
(37:45):
set up a website for that StolenValor stuff.
It's called Blue Cord Patriots.
And I said, oh no, thatcouldn't be.
I Googled it and here comesthis beautiful website up about
11 Bravo, 10s and the blue four.
And here's the names of thethree guys that are running it,
(38:09):
and one of they're all threevets, of course veterans and
one's the name of the guy that'scoming to me for tea.
And I thought that well, that'skind of strange, and so I
emailed it back.
I says, well, that's kind ofstrange.
So I emailed him back.
I said, well, what's the gamehere?
You've got your own game planhere, your own business, but
you're asking me to do yourclaim for you.
(38:30):
He says, well, I don't know howto do T.
Oh, I say, so I'm going to getyou T and you're going to use my
template to start helping otherguys get T.
No, I'm not going to do that.
I don't know necessarily thatyou're entitled to SMCT and from
the way you're describing it,you just want to learn my
technique.
(38:50):
I dropped him like a hot potato.
He ran to a couple of differentother people at Nova and they
had all been forewarned.
As forearms, you can Googleblue-collar patriots to find out
.
They're still in business.
I don't know.
Maybe they are, maybe theypancaked right after that.
But it's an art form.
(39:13):
It took me five years to learnhow to do an SMC claim and to
understand the mechanics of it.
An SMC claim and to understandthe mechanics of it and it's
taken me even that longerperhaps, to understand that that
how that 3.156 C works, where Idig that perfect punji pit and
I stick them little bamboospears in there with tender
(39:35):
loving care, put the bananaleaves on top of it, spread the
leaves over the top of that andhide that pit, and they'll just
sit there and tell that VA guyto come at me.
Come on, hit me with your bestshot, walk him right into that
pit.
J Basser (39:51):
You missed a step, Alex.
You forgot you had to take apaintbrush and paint snake venom
on each one of them well, I'lltell you my whole approach to va
claims, as you know, is mycombat experience.
Alex Graham (40:11):
I think, like, I think, like.
I want three to one airsuperior, air superiority, three
to one, uh, tactical advantagein terms of personnel and
superior firepower, and plentyof it.
I plan it that way.
I don't ever go in there withgee.
I hope I can win, or gee, Ihope I can blow enough smoke up
(40:32):
that judge's rear end to give methe benefit of the doubt.
I go in there with a solid gameplan.
I've gotten to the point whereI don't need a truth meter to
tell when I've got a clientthat's pulling my leg or trying
to go too far or try to get toomuch.
J Basser (40:53):
You know, it happens right now.
Ray Cobb (40:57):
Yeah, we have.
And you're right, Alex, itdoesn't take a.
If you know the system, evenhalfway, it doesn't take a whole
lot to figure out what a guy istrying to get something that he
doesn't deserve.
You know, by the way he makesup his story, by the way he says
(41:19):
things.
You know.
I remember the guy I workedwith was talking to him.
He asked me what time it was.
I told him it was 11.30, 12.30his time.
He says I got to go.
I got a tee time at 2 o'clock.
That guy didn't have kneeproblems and lower back problems
.
Alex Graham (41:37):
If he's going to go out and play golf two and three
days a week, yeah, Well, I hada guy that had gotten a SMCL and
he had legitimate well,apparently legitimate criteria.
He was pushing me to take himto T and I'm looking at his VVMS
(42:02):
file and I see he's gettingVR&E training and he wants to go
into third-year Farsi language.
And I'm thinking to myself thisguy is supposed to have major
mental complications and he'sdoing VR&E in college.
That doesn't make any sense.
How does he get to college?
(42:23):
Does his wife take him there?
Does she walk him in and plunkhim down on the desk?
This guy is just disabled.
How could he be doing this?
I started digging around alittle bit more and then all of
a sudden, the VA comes down onhim.
And this was right.
When I first took the power ofattorney, the first thing they
did is they come in and whackedhim back, took away his aid and
(42:48):
attendance.
It's all of a sudden I'mfighting a restoration of
benefits claim instead of tryingto get him to T.
I'm on the defensive.
When I saw that VR and thesestuff, I had to call him out on
it.
I says you know, son, I can'twrap my head around how disabled
you are and you're still goingto college on this thing.
(43:08):
You're going to have to findsomebody else to represent you.
I can't, in good faith, do that.
J Basser (43:15):
I let him go.
Usually, if it's bad enough,under VR&E, they won't let you
go to college.
They won't give you independentliving.
Alex Graham (43:22):
You know what I mean well I expected I never
even looked at it.
I just saw the vr and e 45 pmthings sitting there and I I
didn't look at him.
I figured he was trying to dothe ilp program.
I honestly didn't till I dug inthere and I saw that thing
where they turned him down forthird-year Farsi language
credits.
(43:43):
Wait a minute, I have a hardtime remembering French from 50
years ago.
My Laotian is a little rustyright now.
I'm not ready for that.
I don't think I'd try it, evenwith an SMCS.
(44:03):
I don't know.
I know there's people that gamethe system.
I think I'm lucky that Ihaven't attracted them to ask.
Not, most of the guys that cometo me are, I mean, messed up.
I got this one fellow I'mrepresenting right now and he
says say, the rest of the guysthat were in my squad want to
(44:27):
know if you'll represent themtoo.
I go well, how many more are wetalking about?
He says well, there were six ofus in the MRAP, but the guy in
the turret got killed when itblew us off the road.
Well, he hit the IEDs IEDsplural.
Yeah, there was two of them,man, it messed us up.
(44:47):
Good, the other five guys wantto join in and I'm honored to do
that.
Personally, I've done a coupleof different groups.
You know I do the Long RangeReconnaissance Patrol guys, I do
the Vietnam dust-off pilots andthere's another couple of
smaller groups of two or threeeach but they keep referring me
(45:12):
out again and again and again.
So it's getting to be about thefourth generation now.
But I know that these guys arelegitimate.
They've got ARCOMs with V's onthem, purple Hearts and combat
action infantrymen badges.
So that's kind of their stockand trade and I don't mind
(45:37):
representing them because Idon't have to be looking over my
shoulder and making sure I'mnot representing some guy for
stolen valor or worse.
J Basser (45:47):
We know Alex is very busy.
I mean, he's probably one ofthe busiest agents in the
country and, yes, he can't takeevery claim but he has a good
network.
If he looks for information hecan actually refer you to
somebody that you know that hetrusts.
You know that can actually helpout.
(46:08):
So you know it's all.
You know it all comes out.
Alex Graham (46:12):
Well, I did hire an attorney, john.
I don't know if I mentionedthat to you.
Her name's Amanda Menear andshe's been working for me since
November.
She's been working for me sinceNovember, taking a lot of my
overload on when somebody callsand says well, it's just, you're
not that disabled.
So you know my triage techniqueonly the guys are dying or dead
(46:35):
or the spouses are crying onthe phone.
Those are the ones that get me.
So I've turned a lot of themover to Amanda, but there's
still so many that I have tohand out even more.
I don't mind being aclearinghouse, and my wife,
known to all as Cupcake Debbie,is studying for the test right
(46:57):
now herself, and her managingbroker, the gal that usually
takes over Debbie's real estatebusiness.
When we go out on a road tripor go off to conferences, we
have to have somebody in commandof the real estate company at
all times.
By law.
So that gal her name is Niven.
(47:21):
She's also training for thetest.
So hopefully I'll have two moreemployees working underneath my
POA code, you know, within ayear, year and a half.
So that's got a great future.
I'd love to save more people.
I'd love to help more people,but, damn, I'm 74,.
J Basser (47:41):
Joe.
Well, Doug just posted the examdates.
This year.
There's three more tests.
One's going pretty quick.
Alex Graham (47:53):
Well, back when we were doing it, you had two shots
a year.
If you flunked it you had towait you know that six months to
get to it again, but I thinkthey're more frequent now.
I don't know.
J Basser (48:09):
Yeah, they're more frequent and a lot more people
are taking it.
Alex Graham (48:14):
That one I took was 97 questions and you had to get
75% correct and I aced thething, according to the gal that
called me up to tell me aboutit, but I think I've seen it go
down as low as 47 questions andone time it was 27.
So it's always changing.
There might be, but then againthere's a lot more to learn,
(48:36):
because I think you 'd stillhave to learn the legacy system,
because there's still a few ofthose cases still going.
I think I'm down to about oneor two.
One of them's up at the courtright now.
J Basser (48:53):
Well, the PACT Act and all the other stuff's come
along and all the changes youknow and.
But pay the truth In order tobe an agent.
If you have a hard copy of themanual, okay, and you have to
update that truth in order to bean agent.
If you have a hard copy of themanual, okay, and you have to
update that copy.
These changes are coming so farand fast and furious that you
have to have a full-timesecretary.
Just implement the changes init.
Alex Graham (49:13):
The N21 is not printed, it's purely an
electronic creation and itchanges, as I know, 135 times.
At least that was one year Inoticed that it had that many
changes, but sometimes it hasmore than that.
But look at the precedents upat the court at the federal
(49:34):
circuit, like Barry and AlaskaDuran and some of these other
things.
They changed law so drasticallythat the M M21 not only has a
do this, don't do that, butthere's a lot of cascading
effect into other parts of theM21 that when you change this it
(49:54):
compounds it with interest overhere someplace else.
So it isn't that easy to fix,to just change a little
paragraph somewhere what's therule?
J Basser (50:07):
every equal reaction has an opposite reaction yes,
sir, that's exactly right.
Alex Graham (50:14):
You go through VA life as a VA agent.
You want to be an irresistibleforce.
You want to be a.
J Basser (50:23):
You want to be an irresistible force.
You want to be a good tank witha good flamethrower.
You know what I mean.
Alex Graham (50:33):
Well, I had a real attitude about that when I was
over there.
I carried two hand grenades inmy cargo pocket down here
Everywhere I went, in additionto a .357 Magnum.
I have great faith in handgrenades in my cargo pocket down
here Everywhere I went, inaddition to a .357 Magnum.
I have great faith in handgrenades.
But you know, the DuPontNemours got the contract for the
M26s.
(50:53):
They were the cheapest bidder.
That's why you need two, justin case.
J Basser (51:00):
That's why the Japanese soldiers in New Guinea
in World War II, they forgot totake their hand grenades with
them and they tried to crossthese little lakes to get to the
other side.
Well, it was one of the biggestmass casualties of the Japanese
soldiers.
Alex Graham (51:13):
Without a shot being fired at them, all these
crocodiles started eating themwell, we ferried in a group of
six special forces group into HoChi Minh Trail.
One day in August we landed sixdifferent little airstrips and
they got out at airstrip numberfour.
(51:33):
We still hit five and six justto confuse the enemy, so they
wouldn't know where we'd letthem off at.
And they were carrying cases ofhand grenades.
And when they got we pickedthem up about a week later and
brought them back in.
We were sitting out behind thebarracks drinking beer.
After they got back Not theofficers of course, but the
(51:55):
enlisted guys I said I know youguys aren't supposed to tell us
what y'all was doing.
I said what were you doing?
They said, well, I guess Idon't mind telling you this is,
we are special effects guys.
Open them things up realcareful and take them hand
grenades out and rotate theprussic acts of fuse where you
pull the pin and the bail flipsoff and the hand grenade goes
(52:17):
off.
So it kind of screws up theirmorale because nobody wants to
use hand grenades, becausethey're afraid they're going to
blow themselves up with them.
So yeah, that was kind of aninteresting psychiatric
operation to destroy theirmorale.
And apparently they did it withthe 7.62 Browns for the AKs and
(52:43):
the SKSs.
They load that thing chock fullof lead, azite and when that
primer hits the end of thatround, the whole gun blows up in
their face.
It gets to the point wherethey're a little gun-shy about
it.
Every time they pull thetrigger they flinch a little bit
, so their aim's off a littlegun shy about.
Every time they pull thetrigger they flinch a little bit
(53:04):
, so their aim's off.
J Basser (53:05):
That can remind me of recent activity over in the
Middle East, there with pagers,oh well yeah, we might have
copied the Mozart, but I neverheard of doing anything like
that.
Alex Graham (53:19):
But I thought it was intriguing that they spent a
lot of time salting down the HoChi Minh Trail with munitions
that were a little bit suspect.
J Basser (53:29):
Yeah.
Alex Graham (53:34):
War is hell, but combat is something entirely
different.
J Basser (53:39):
Nubious.
You know, I mean we got somereally smart people coming up
with this stuff and theyactually carry it out.
You know it's a gap thing.
World War II was the worst warman.
Alex Graham (53:51):
Well, the last thing I was going to tell you
all today is I was reading someimportant articles and I read
one and this wasn't by DougCollins, the new VA secretary.
It was somebody else making anobservation that the VA was
getting ready to get rid of80,000 employees that were
(54:12):
surplus people, hr helpingveterans get to a hospital or
get better service or moredoctors, more psychiatrists.
They were just going to get ridof too many people that didn't
(54:34):
have a functional purpose andthey said, yeah, but they're all
veterans.
And it turns out of those80,000 people, only 5,000 of
them are veterans, and thatchanges the whole timber of the
conversation.
If it was all, 80,000 of themwere all veterans, I would be
(54:54):
strongly against that.
I would think why don't wetriage this somehow and keep the
most disabled veterans that wecan in jobs to keep them
occupied?
It's a good thing to getdisabled people out in public.
It helps them mentally, I knowthat.
But I thought the numbers aregoing to be far higher than 5
(55:18):
000 veterans involved in thisthat might lose their jobs.
So it disturbs me greatly toread the newspapers or or listen
to the news at six o'clock,because sometimes it's a little
bit more slanted.
I think that fox is slanted, Ithink that they're all slanted.
But I I have to realize thatthere's a lot of mistruths being
(55:44):
populated out there.
We have to cut back.
We're spending money likedrunken sailors and some of
these programs are squanderingmoney on.
It appalls me, I can't wrap mybrain around it.
But I think you can cut toomuch.
But I haven't seen too much yet.
(56:05):
For everything I've seen therehasn't been enough.
Ray Cobb (56:10):
Well, Alex, when we get a chance, I'll tell you
about the VA spending $1,200 toget me a $5 rubber ball.
J Basser (56:29):
Well, he spent about 2.5 million dollars trying to
keep me out of my greenhouse,and you got the other finished
construction now, so is it readyto go?
Alex Graham (56:36):
yeah, we had a hard time finding anybody who wanted
to be a general contractor.
We didn't feel like paying them$200 an hour to sit there and
watch, so we renewed our oldcontractor's license.
I gave it up in 2012 when I gottoo ill and my son-in-law
started a whole new company.
But we just renewed ours justto do the greenhouse, and then
(56:59):
we'll let it die out again.
J Basser (57:03):
It's like a winter to me.
Alex Graham (57:05):
Well, it solves the purpose of somebody being the
go-to guy.
That's what the VA wants oneperson to talk to, not 16
subcontractors for concreteelectrical plumbing.
J Basser (57:20):
I know that's a headache.
Well, guys, I hate to say this,but all good things must come
to an end.
Alex, thanks for the update.
We appreciate everything you doand we'll have you back on real
soon to have another goodshindig.
This single moscotch is for you.
You probably got horses thatare getting ready to eat.
(57:41):
Yes, I do, ray.
Thank you for coming on.
We appreciate you, buddy, Ienjoyed it.
Guys, we got some changescoming up here.
We're going to go back to livebroadcast, hopefully here in the
next few weeks.
We're going to do some trialsand errors and see how it works
out, with Bethany here startingthe next couple of days.
Once we get it worked out,we'll still be doing them on
(58:03):
Zoom, but there'll be anotherformat.
You can broadcast, listen tothe live shows, but with that, I
want to thank everybody forlistening.
This is John, on behalf of theExposed Vet Productions Mr Ray
Cobb and John Stacy they callhim Jay Basher and Mr Alex
Graham.
We'll be signing off for now.
Alex Graham (58:20):
Thanks, John.
J Basser (58:21):
See you all later.
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