

Knoxville Rep. Bill Dunn

The supermajority is fed up with the liberal media making fun of Republicans. So retaliation is definitely in order. That’s the word from Knoxville Rep. (Hill)Billy Dunn. (Whoops! There we go again!) Dunn says it's time to yank away a little state cash from Tennessee’s newspaper industry.

Republicans aren’t crazy, he says. They only seem crazy in the newspapers.

Dunn, an important member of the House leadership team, says he’s voting for legislation requiring the Transportation Department to advertise bids for contracts by publishing notices on the department's website instead of in newspapers around the state.

That’ll cost newspapers $250,000 a year. At a House Transportation subcommittee meeting, Dunn said it serves them right.

Dunn said he used to like reporters and saw the state’s public notice cash as “almost kind of a little subsidy that the people pay in order to have the news brought to them.” But not anymore.

“Last year as I read so many reports that were completely inaccurate, I felt there was a disservice going on. People say, ‘Oh, the Republicans are making us laughingstocks in Tennessee.’ No, it’s bad reports.”