Top of the Fold

• The Babylon Bee’s self-fulfilling Twitter employee prophecy: Twitter employees are clearly a bunch of leftist snowflakes who can’t take a joke. Of course, given their reaction to a recent satirical video from the conservative humor site The Babylon Bee, maybe the video should have been classified as “prophetic” rather than “satire.” The video in question depicts fictional Twitter employees having a meltdown over Elon Musk’s bid to buy the social media company. In one scene, an employee named “Mandy” sobs, “If he buys our free speech platform, people will be able to have [dramatic pause] free speech on our platform.” After the video was posted, Twitter flagged it for containing “sensitive content.” Upon seeing Twitter’s warning on the video, Babylon Bee Editor-in-Chief Kyle Mann deadpanned, “Our video mocking Twitter employees for being too sensitive was flagged by Twitter for sensitive content.”

• Biden unconcerned about recession and touts economic growth despite first-quarter GDP drop: “I’m not concerned about a recession,” Joe Biden stated on Thursday. “I mean, you’re always concerned about a recession, but the GDP, you know, fell to 1.4%. But here’s the deal: We also had last quarter consumer spending and business investment and residential investment increase at significant rates,” and “unemployment’s the lowest rate since 1970.” Biden then concluded, “What you’re seeing is enormous growth in the country that was affected by everything from COVID and the COVID blockages that occurred along the way.” Well, Biden has a strange way of judging progress, and he may be the only one seeing roses and rainbows. Deutsche Bank certainly isn’t. The bank, which had warned of a coming recession, is now ringing the alarm bells even louder, forecasting that a “major recession” is imminent and urging the Fed to act “sooner and … more aggressively” to lessen “longer-term damage to the economy.” Indeed, with first-quarter GDP having shrunk, the Fed will likely increase interest rates in May by half a percentage point in an attempt to put the brakes on the 40-year-high inflation.

• Pentagon report delineates the cost of Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal: From a military cost standpoint, just how costly was Joe Biden’s abysmal Afghanistan surrender? The Pentagon just released a report delineating the cost of lost military equipment. According to the report, $7.2 billion worth of military equipment was left behind to the Taliban. Included among the equipment was $1 billion in aircraft, 22,000 Humvees, and almost all of the communication equipment supplied during the war. The Pentagon does note that almost all of it was either destroyed or retrograded. Of course, military equipment wasn’t all that was left behind — several hundred American citizens as well as Afghans who supported the U.S. were also left behind enemy lies. Fortunately, while Biden may have abandoned these Americans and Afghan allies, others have not and have been tirelessly working to get them home.

Headlines

• “America deserves better”: Reaction to Joe Biden’s latest alarming Russia gaffe (Fox News)

• Biden requests additional $33 billion in funding for Ukraine defense (PM)

• Biden blasted for policing free speech with dystopian disinformation bureau (NY Post)

• Elon Musk sells $4 billion in Tesla shares, presumably for Twitter deal (AP)

• DHS has spent $72 million to avoid building more border wall (Washington Times)

• Oklahoma passes Texas-style abortion ban (Daily Wire)

• Georgia governor signs series of education bills into law (NBC News)

• Leftists use COVID relief to fund CRT in schools (Fox News)

• FDA moves to ban sales of menthol cigarettes (New York Times)

• Marine veteran dies fighting alongside Ukrainians (Fox News)

• Policy: America isn’t responsible for student loans (The Federalist)

• Humor: Twelve job alternatives for soon-to-be fired Twitter content moderators (Babylon Bee)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit Headline Report.

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