Yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) announced he will step down in January to head the Heritage Foundation, a gig that comes with a million-dollar salary. On Current TV’s The War Room with Jennifer Granholm, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel said DeMint, a hardline social conservative and Tea Party champion, represents a discredited brand teetering towards irrelevance. The senator’s move, vanden Heuvel says, reveals that the “Heritage Foundation is a right-wing marketing juggernaut, not a place for seeding new and innovative ideas.”

—Steven Hsieh