San Diego, Calif.- A state appeals court has ordered the city of San Diego to compensate city workers who lost their pensions following a voter-approved pension reform initiative that was illegally placed on the 2012 ballot.

The three-justice panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that workers whose pensions were replaced by a 401(k)-style plan, per 2012’s Proposition B, should be paid the difference between what they would have received via the original pension system and the current system, plus 7 percent annual interest.

I’ve got some good news and some bad news. And once we put it all together, it’ll be news you can use — an easy way to join the Second American Revolution, now in progress.

First, the bad news: You are being violated by your own government. Hustled and conned. We all are. Our voices and our votes. Our tax dollars, too.

In 2017, a groundbreaking Harvard Business School analysis of the U.S. political system exposed the lie that we live in a “two-party system.” Written by business leader Katherine Gehl and the “father of modern business strategy” Michael Porter, the report found that we live under a two-party “duopoly” that rigs the game to protect its own power.

“The political system is a private industry that sets its own rules.”

Furthermore, Gehl and Porter outline that:

Study the picture above closely. The person pictured on the left and the person pictured on the right are actually the same person. Okay, not really. But Tulsi Gabbard 2020 will in many ways be a repeat of Ron Paul 2008 and 2012, from similarities in the the candidates themselves to the establishment's response.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D) of Hawaii is a progressive socialist.

Update: Kevin Beiser has sent the following statement to IVN:

“We were first made aware of these allegations less than 24 hours ago. There is no truth to these allegations. We believe they are politically motivated and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves.” -Kevin Beiser

Let’s just call everything outside major urban centers, the rural vote. Betrayed by politicians of every political party, left out of every agriculture-related policy decision in every government agency, on the short end of every economic development strategy at all levels of government, the rural vote is changing. Still broken and outraged, a newly energized coalition now demands integrity in elections and true representation for the people of rural and small town economies.

You want that vote? Start here:

By all accounts New Mexico would seem to be a strong candidate for reform of their primary elections. At least that’s what we thought when we started working with local activists to build support there three years ago.

One of only nine states with completely closed primaries, New Mexico has seen rapid growth in the number of registered independent voters. In 2000, 15% of voters were not registered with either major party. Today, that number is 25% or approximately 300,000 people.

There are hundreds, literally hundreds of organizations and individual campaigns working right now to fix the myriad of problems that face our political and electoral processes -- from the local to the national levels. The organizations tackle voter rights, primary election reform, ballot access, gerrymandering reform, campaign finance reform, alternative voting methods, electing candidates outside the two major parties, and more.

The following are 10 of the biggest organizations working to reform elections and give voters more choice at the ballot box in 2020:

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - US Rep. Justin Amash has introduced a bill that seeks to level the playing field for all candidates running for Congress.

The bill requires states to impose the same ballot access requirements on all candidates, regardless of party nomination status or affiliation. It also eliminates straight-ticket voting for congressional elections.

The last year for The Center for Election Science was transformative. We received a grant from the Open Philanthropy Project of $600K, and then we helped win the first ballot initiative for approval voting the very same year. We won by 64%, a landslide by any measure. And we did it in a city of 120,000 people.