There once was a bored shepherd boy sitting on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a deep breath and sang out, "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!"
The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.
One of Aesop's best-loved fables is the story of the boy who cried wolf, a shepherd boy who relieves the tedium of his lonely job with false alarms. When a wolf eventually does appear, the boy's cries for help go unanswered.
The fable's famous moral: "Nobody believes a liar, even when the liar is telling the truth!"
If Emily Braxton ever has a legitimate grievance, no one's going to believe her. Like the boy that cried wolf, the misguided Charleston woman has spent the past decade amusing herself at taxpayers' expense, filing lawsuits in Kanawha Circuit Court against prominent people she says are plotting to do her harm.
Unlike the shepherd boy's fabrications, Emily's tall tales are not plausible.
Late last year, Braxton filed suit against Oprah Winfrey, George and Laura Bush and a trio of doctors, accusing them of implanting a camera inside her body in order to reincarnate her.
Braxton filed suit against Winfrey again this month, claiming the popular talk show host conspired with televangelist T.D. Jakes and his wife to transfer funds from Emily's Social Security account to the U.S. Treasury to finance nuclear warfare. She also claims that Winfrey, the Jakes, Pope Benedict XVI, and President Barack Obama conspired to kill the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.
Emily has filed at least a dozen loopy lawsuits in Kanawha Circuit Court since 2001, all of the older ones havinghave been dismissed. It would be nice if the court would start ignoring her. It can and it should.
Despite what plaintiff's lawyers like to suggest, there is no "right to sue" in this country. Braxton isn't entitled to use state power to threaten other citizens as she does, even if her wealthy and famous targets can afford to defend themselves.