Nancy Hooper

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November 30, 2018

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Congress Can Stop This Vicious Cycle of Debt-Based Poverty

On any given day across the country, millions of Americans have had their drivers’ license suspended — not because of unsafe driving or other safety concerns but because of a government imposed debt they can’t afford to pay. It doesn’t have to be this way. State and local governments can and must end taxation by citation — and right now Congress has a chance to help them do it. The Driving for Opportunity Act, introduced by Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), is bipartisan legislation that provides grants to states that do not suspend, revoke, or refuse to renew a driver’s license of a person or registration of a motor vehicle for failure to pay a civil or criminal fine or fee. By helping states cover the costs of reinstating driver’s licenses previously suspended for unpaid fines and fees, the Driving for Opportunity Act would encourage states to do the right thing, and it would give millions of Americans the opportunity to have their driving privileges restored....

Federal Judges are Failing Incarcerated People During the Pandemic

I am tired of members of my profession dismissing my clients’ humanity. Sadly, it happens a lot: “Your clients are probably lying to you, which is unsurprising,” reads an email from a representative of the Texas State government. “People get better medical care in jail,” claim people who have never been incarcerated a day in their lives as reason to keep people locked up during this pandemic. “We can’t trust inmates to follow the law, so how could we trust them to quarantine from others if they were released?” asks a judge who swore an oath to protect the fundamental rights of these “inmates.” It should not be news to anyone that the scales of justice are tipped in favor of the powerful, but it’s never been starker to me than now. I’ve spent the last six months on the frontlines of the legal battle to protect incarcerated people from preventable illness and death as jails and prisons fumbled their response to the COVID-19 crisis. What I’ve seen is a chasm between the courage an...

Billy Goats, Trademark Twins, and the Descriptive Limits of Language

I’ve been thinking about the nature of language lately, ever since I listened to a podcast about various philosophers who devoted their study to language. For example, Ludwig Wittgenstein , one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, is famous for his work on the logic of language. A fundamental premise to his philosophy is that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” In other words , language, although purposed on painting a picture of reality, is fundamentally limited in its ability to describe and do so fully and accurately. For Wittgenstein, this primarily meant that language cannot help us answer pressing metaphysical questions, but the realization has practical importance in branding. Consider Wittgenstein’s insight in tandem with the desire to promote recall and recognition in a name without causing customers to confuse the name with another source, and you are presented with the challenge underlying all word-based ...

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