Heritage Foundation vice president Mike Gonzalez explains the liberal mindset on funding PBS to US News:

There’s a reason liberals have taken up Big Bird as the face of public broadcasting and not, say, Bill Moyers. Mr. Bird is feathery and cuddly, while Moyers likes to compare American flag lapel pins to Mao’s Little Red Book. This is how the left undermines our institutions from within: make the effort appear homey and apple pie-ish. Show Big Bird, not Big Bill…

Only PBS and NPR journalists think they’re entitled to a conservative taxpayer’s dime. And this is the nub of the problem. How can an institution that represents the views of only the liberal half of the population, and only grudgingly acknowledges conservatives and their principles in passing, believe it has a claim on all taxpayers?

Do you think the federal government should continue to subsidize PBS?

The media called on Heritage Foundation policy experts 42 times yesterday to provide their take on the proceedings at the Republican convention in Tampa.

Here’s how the appearances broke down across the media:

• Five on cable TV networks including Bloomberg TV
• Seven on international TV including Sky News Arabia and Canada’s Sun News Network
• Fourteen on national radio including the Hugh Hewitt Show and NPR
• Fourteen on local radio shows including Tampa’s Glenn Pav Show and Tucson’s Jon Justice Show
• Two on internet-only programs including Breitbart TV

Here’s Heritage vice president Mike Gonzalez discussing immigration and Latino voters on Bloomberg TV: Continue Reading »

The Republican Party’s effort to re-brand itself as more conservative at its Tampa convention reflects the two parties’ increasing alignment around conservative and liberal ideas, a Heritage Foundation panel said yesterday on the Fox News Power Play.

Today’s GOP is “more uniformly conservative in its view on a range of issues,” Heritage vice president Mike Franc said. The convention speakers reflect the changed “ideological center of gravity, which now is comfortably to the right.” Continue Reading »

Heritage Vice President Mike Gonzalez. Photo: Chas Geer

Remembering his childhood in communist-run Cuba, Heritage Foundation Vice President Mike Gonzalez describes very personal experiences with the terrors of government gone wrong.

“It’s funny because I learned the values of small government by seeing government out of control,” he says.

Sitting at his desk on a Wednesday afternoon, Gonzalez, who oversees Heritage’s communications efforts, explains what it was like growing up in Cuba and how it shaped his life and outlook on politics. He speaks about why he is a conservative, what makes him passionate about working at Heritage, the country he so dearly loves and the need to explain conservative policy to all audiences. Continue Reading »

Last week, in response to a blog post by The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez, Daimler AG apologized for using an image of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara during a promotional for Mercedes Benz cars.

In his post, “Mercedes-Benz Uses Communist Madman Che Guevara to Sell Luxury Cars,” Gonzalez argues that using a psychopath with a sadistic bloodlust to sell cars was inappropriate.

Guevara’s image briefly appeared in the background at a presentation at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Daimler claimed it was a metaphor for Mercedes inspiring a “revolution in automobility enabled by new technologies, in particular those associated with connectivity.”

Read Gonzalez’s analysis on The Huffington Post.

Read Daimler’s apology statement, as featured on MSNBC.

Since before the firing of National Public Radio commentator Juan Williams, The Heritage Foundation has been keeping the pressure on Congress to cut NPR’s taxpayer funding.

Photo: Flickr/Mr. T in DC

“National Public Radio’s dismissal of Juan Williams is a powerful indictment of NPR’s practices and corporate culture,” Heritage vice President Mike Gonzalez wrote last fall. “Small wonder voices are once again calling for the federal government to defund NPR—which gets 16% of its budget from taxpayers. The Heritage Foundation has long called for such defunding.”

Heritage is keeping up the pressure. Gonzalez, a former journalist,  appeared last week on a local NPR affiliate to argue with Patrick Butler, CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations, about the need to end federal subsidies.

On Tuesday, infamous filmmaker James O’Keefe released a new video in which NPR executive Ron Schiller called members of the tea party racist and xenophobic. A leading Jewish group called other remarks in the video anti-Semitic and have joined the call to withdraw funding.

But on Monday—just hours before the video was released—NPR’s then-chief executive Vivian Schiller (no relation to Ron Schiller) said the taxpayer-funded news organization exhibited no bias against conservatives. She even dared conservatives to show her the proof. O’Keefe’s video prompted her resignation.

“The timing was fortuitous — and it exposed Schiller as an apologist for the liberal mainstream media, of which NPR is a key player,” Heritage’s Rob Bluey said of Vivian Schiller’s remarks. “If this is the type of talk Schiller permitted at the highest levels of NPR, is there really any question about the organization’s hostility to conservatives?”

Do you believe any media should have federal taxpayer funding?

Peter Brookes

At 11:50 a.m. Eastern on Fox News’ “Happening Now,” Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert Peter Brookes will discuss North Korea’s nuclear program and the threat posed by electromagnetic pulse warfare.

Earlier today on Telemundo’s “Enfoque,” Heritage Vice President Michael Gonzalez discussed President Obama’s upcoming trip to Latin America.

Update: at 6:00 p.m. on FOX News’ “Special Report,” Heritage expert Brian Darling will discuss the latest GAO report that found redundant federal funding for homeless shelters.

Photo: Flickr/Mr. T in DC

Heritage Vice President of Communications Mike Gonzalez spoke out forcefully yesterday in favor of removing government subsidies for National Public Radio and allowing the free market to determine NPR’s fate.

Gonzalez appeared on the public radio program “All Sides with Ann Fisher” alongside Patrick Butler, the president and CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations.

The sometimes heated debate centered on proposals to strip federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which subsidizes public radio and television stations.

Listen to audio of the debate below.

Gonzalez urged lawmakers to “fire NPR” last fall, after the network fired commentator Juan Williams. He continued the fight in January when the new Congress began.

While attention remains rightly focused on dramatic events in North Africa, it’s important we not forget dictatorships closer to home.

Writing on FoxNews.com Heritage Vice President Mike Gonzalez explains that Fidel Castro has attempted to prevent a similar movement in Cuba:

As Muammar al-Qaddafi clings to power by ordering his troops to shoot on their Libyan compatriots, across the globe in the Caribbean one of his last remaining global buddies is doing his best to keep the lid on his own victims. Fidel Castro, presiding over the wreckage of what was once the thriving island of Cuba, stepped up repression today, the first anniversary of the hunger-strike death of a dissident leader, lest others take to the streets.

On the Foundry, Heritage’s Ray Walser notes the problems with the Obama administration’s Cuba policy, which Gonzalez calls a “slap in the face” to Cuban dissidents.