Elephant escapes the circus and takes a thunderous tour of a Montana city



A 58-year-old elephant escaped from the circus Tuesday afternoon and roamed the streets of Butte, Montana. The bloodless parade, which stunned passersby and briefly brought traffic to a standstill, was peaceably terminated in time for the show to go on.

The Jordan World Circus has been touring the Treasure State in recent days. It counts among its stars multiple elephants, including the escapee, Viola — who has alternatively been referred to in some reports by the name "Tola."

The general manager of the Civic Center, Bill Melvin, told the Daily Montanan that the gargantuan creature was spooked by a car backfiring. The African elephant lumbered some 100 yards away from the venue before her trainer could wrangle her and escort her back to the circus.

In that brief window of time the elephant knew liberty, Viola lumbered across Harrison Avenue and into a gas station parking lot, halting traffic along the way.

Lisa Rogers, an employee at the Town Pump off Harrison Avenue, told the Montana Standard that at the sight of the beast, "I jumped in the air."

Josh Hannifin, the comanager of the gas station, indicated that the elephant moved quickly, quipping, "There's never a dull moment working here."

Melissa Crosby, a real estate agent with a good view of the avenue, peered out just as Viola passed by.

"I texted my husband and he thought I was losing it," Crosby told the Standard. "It was the high point of my day."

— (@)

Viola's handler of 22 years, Armando Loyal, indicated that the elephant was getting a bath behind the Civic Center when a passing truck backfired.

"She was trying to get away from the noise," said Loyal. "It was nerve-wracking."

The elephant's adventure was brought to a close in less than half an hour.

"The circus, of course, is very professional, and they had a professional trainer and he was real calm and the animal was calm and they were able to get her right back," Melvin told the Daily Montanan. "It was not nearly as dramatic as you would think."

The damage was reportedly limited to the flattening of an old fence.

"Everybody's back home safe and sound," added Melvin.

The New York Post indicated that the circus was able to put on its 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. shows despite the escape.

Don Kaltschmidt, the head of the Montana Republican Party, joked that Viola's self-guided tour signaled the GOP was "taking Silverbow County by storm." After all, the elephant has been associated with Republicans since the 19th century, thanks to political cartoonist Thomas Nast.

Jason Thielman, chief of staff for Montana Sen. Steve Daines (R) and the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote, "Metaphor for 2024 senate race."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals activists similarly seized upon the incident for their cause, claiming, "Viola's desperate break for freedom follows decades of abuse and involuntary servitude at the hands of Carson & Barnes Circus."

PETA suggested further that Viola had previously escaped in 2010 and in 2014.

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The White House's LGBTQ Circus | Ep 723

The White House's LGBTQ Circus | Ep 723

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Shapiro: Dear Democrats, screaming and whining aren't strategies

This week, Democrats pulled out all the stops in their attempts to stop President Trump's pick, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, from gaining a seat on the Supreme Court. Now, Democrats have no power to stop Kavanaugh's ascension; thanks to former Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Democrats invoked the so-called nuclear option in order to reduce the burden for approving judicial nominees down to a simple majority. This has left Democrats and their allies with two options and two options only: screaming and whining.

First, the screaming.

Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., both of whom have already announced they will not support Kavanaugh's nomination, attempted to shut down the Senate Judiciary Committee Kavanaugh hearing. Harris immediately called for an adjournment so that she could supposedly review more of Kavanaugh's documents. Then Booker jumped in. By the end of the first 40 minutes of the hearing, Harris had interrupted eight times; Booker 10 times; Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., 13 times; Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, six times; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., three times; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., twice; Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., once; and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., once. Apparently, all were acting at the behest of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who was attempting to run out the shot clock ... or something.

That was just the beginning. Women's March activist and terrorist sympathizer Linda Sarsour showed up to scream at Republicans; she was arrested. Several more feminist protesters showed up dressed as cast members of "The Handmaid's Tale"; other feminists simply screamed at the top of their lungs during the hearing, forcing their ejection. Planned Parenthood Action tweeted, "This is what the resistance looks like, and we're going to fight like hell to #StopKavanuagh."

The screaming, needless to say, did not work.

And so, the Democrats deployed the next prong of their attack: whining. First, a bevy of leftist commentators on Twitter deployed to inform Americans that Zina Bash, a former Kavanaugh law clerk, was secretly utilizing a white supremacy signal while sitting behind Kavanaugh. Amy Siskind of The Weekly List tweeted, "What fresh hell is this!!!??? Kavanaugh's assistant Zina Bash giving the white power sign right behind him during the hearing? This alone should be disqualify!!!" Eugene Gu, a Twitter celebrity doctor, called the supposed sign a "national outrage and a disgrace to the rule of law." Video of Bash earned millions of views on Twitter within a few hours.

There's only one problem: Bash is half-Mexican and half-Jewish, and her paternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors. Oops.

But more whining was in order. Fred Guttenberg, the father of a Parkland shooting victim, stated that he tried to introduce himself to Kavanaugh but Kavanaugh wouldn't shake his hand. Again, there was only one problem: That never happened. White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah explained: "As Judge Kavanaugh left for his lunch break, an unidentified individual approached him. Before the Judge was able to shake his hand, security had intervened."

Here's the truth: Judicial hearings are largely useless at this point. Thanks to the destruction of Reagan nominee Judge Robert Bork in 1987, judicial nominees know not to answer direct questions about judicial rulings and philosophy, and senators know to only ask questions most likely to land them on television. With that in mind, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., should simply bring up Kavanaugh for a vote and end this circus.

But he won't. The circus will continue. Our politics will continue to degrade. Anybody who thinks President Trump is the sole performer under the big top should realize that the circus has three rings, and Democrats occupy at least one of them.

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