Sure, the cable network covered the DOMA decision as it broke mid-morning, giving the essential details to viewers. But then it swiftly moved onto what it apparently deemed more urgent stories, like an IRS credit card spending spree on porn and wine, a Keystone Pipeline corruption scandal featuring a billionaire supporter of the president, and President Obama's allegedly lavish trip to Africa.

As someone who worked at Fox News for two and half years, I can tell you this coverage decision wasn’t surprising -- it fits right into the network's strategy.

I was employed by Fox for two and half years, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2011. Unlike other former Fox producers who’ve caused a stir, I’m not here to dish juicy tidbits about secret meetings or specific anchors. I have no gripes to share about the No. 1 rated cable news channel. But my time there -- beginning on the cusp of the Obama age in 2008 as a guest booker for Foxnews.com’s “Strategy Room,” and ending in 2011 working on “Freedom Watch” with Judge Andrew Napolitano -- did give me valuable insight into the network.

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But 7/22 did happen. It was truly horrible, and the American people were understandably scared and angry. 7/22 opened a door, and Sarah Palin walked through it.

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“It’s beyond disingenuous for anyone to claim that a vote for this bill is a vote for security,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Look no further than the fact that Senator Rubio and amnesty supporters nixed Senator [John] Thune’s amendment that required the feds to finally build part of a needed security fence before moving forward on the status of illegal immigrants who’ve already broken the law to be here.” She added: "There are plenty of other commonsense solutions, but this bill isn’t about fixing problems; it’s about amnesty at all costs."

"As the Senate moves to pass amnesty, the only bright spot in this travesty is the rallying revolution we can look forward to," Palin continued. "For just as opposition to Obamacare became a rallying cry for the 2010 midterm elections, opposition to this fundamentally transforming amnesty bill will galvanize the grassroots in next year’s elections. And 2014 is just around the corner."

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Cringe-worthy mea culpas have become something of a regular occurrence, but Chris Brown ranks high on the growing list of famous people who don't seem to understand the basic elements of an apology.  Over the last four years, the 24-year-old R&B artist has repeatedly squandered second chances he doesn't deserve after physically abusing on-again-off-again girlfriend Rihanna, and generally acting like a sociopath.

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Until today. For one day only, the Capitol has been consumed by what feels a bit like a single-night stand reunion tour for a band that had one good album that mostly gets played for nostalgic reasons today. The event was billed as "the largest demonstration of Tea Party support since 2010," and while it may have succeeded on that count, it also underscores how much the movement has slipped since that year of its glory.

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The former Alaska governor and perennial-might-be-candidate (recently the object of speculation as a potential Senate candidate) showed up on "Fox and Friends" this morning in her renewed role as Fox News contributor.

But today wasn't like any other Monday -- it was the launch of CNN's much-touted "New Day" morning show with Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan. Fox News clearly had stacked their program in order to blunt the impact of a new franchise on a competing network; Palin appeared alongside guest host Megyn Kelly, one of Fox's most popular anchors.

This isn't the first time Palin has been deployed to shore up morning-show ratings: she memorably appeared on "Today" as a guest host in April 2012. Her appearance had been designed as a way to divert attention away from Katie Couric's return to morning TV on "Good Morning America," and didn't go over well. In his book "Top of the Morning," TV reporter Brian Stelter described the incident: "[Couric had] forced 'Today' into a defensive position, as demonstrated by the desperate booking of Sarah Palin as counterprogramming."

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I stopped paying much attention to Palin around the time she self-destructed by trying to make herself the victim after the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the shooting of 18 other people in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011. After that, not only my attention but others’ seemed to drift away. She declared that she wouldn’t run for president, surprising no one, her spots on Fox News became less frequent (to her loud complaints) and, ultimately, the right-wing network didn’t renew her contract (though it was stated as her choice; she was going on to better things). I thought maybe Palin didn’t matter anymore.

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"Militarily, where is our commander in chief?" she asked. "We’re talking now more new interventions. I say, until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander and chief who knows what he’s doing, well, in these radical Islamic countries, who aren’t even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, ‘Allah Akbar,’ I say until we have someone who knows what they’re doing, I say let Allah sort it out."

Here's video of Palin's full remarks. The Syria comments come in around the 7:35 mark:

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The former Alaska governor first joined Fox in 2010 and soon become the network's highest-paid contributor, earning nearly $1 million a year. Fox even built Palin a private studio in her Wasilla home and network head Roger Ailes told the AP that "I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings." But after a series of sour negotiations, Palin "parted ways" with Fox in 2013, after the network seemingly “cancelled all my scheduled interviews tonight” according to a post Palin wrote on Facebook.

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And I would always tell them the message isn’t so much pushed as it is pulled, gravitationally, with Roger Ailes as the sun at the center of the solar system; his vice presidents were the forces of gravity that kept the planet-size anchors and executive producers in a tight orbit; then all the lesser producers and PAs were moons and satellites and debris of varying sizes.

An organizational flow chart at Fox would be tough to draw up, as title alone was not the ultimate signifier of status. Sometimes the anchors outranked their executive producers, as was the case with "The O’Reilly Factor." (In fact, Bill had procured an EP title for himself, but he outranked the two other EPs on the show, both Stan, who oversaw TV, radio, and the website, and Gayle, who focused on television and also served as a fact-checker.) Sometimes the anchors were relatively weak — as was the case with a lot of weekend shows, and maybe some of the newswheel hours — and a strong senior producer or producer outranked, or at least pretended to outrank, the host. (For example, Lizzie from "The Lineup," who was only a producer but was tough enough that she probably could have bossed around Ailes himself had she been left alone in a room with him for more than five minutes.)

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But with the easing of scandal fever on the Potomac, Republicans are back to fighting one another, and the week-long Senate clash between freshman Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. John McCain over the budget is exposing the yawning gulf within the party once again.

Now that the GOP-dominated House and Democratic-led Senate have passed very different budgets, McCain has tried to argue for the formation of a conference committee that would try to reconcile the two. That might be a thankless, impossible task nowadays, but it’s nonetheless the way Congress has always worked. Democrats agree with McCain, and so do most Republicans.

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“I think there are a lot of outside interests that would like to see Sarah Palin in some form of elected office. Most in Alaska recognize our former governor is really not involved in or engaged in the state anymore, that she’s moved to other interests,” Murkowski told the Hill. “In order for you to represent the state of Alaska, you’ve got to be in the state.”

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According to the poll, Palin would get 32 percent of the vote, followed by Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell who would get 30 percent. Twenty-four percent said they are not sure, while only 14 percent said they'd vote for Joe Miller, the Tea Party candidate who failed to oust Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2010.

Both Treadwell and Miller have formed exploratory committees for the race, which is to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Begich, who is up for reelection. The poll finds that in a head-to-head matchup of just Treadwell and Miller, Treadwell would lead 45-26 percent.

The poll was conducted for the Tea Party Leadership Fund, which is pushing for Palin to run.

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NBC's "Today" has announced that Chris Christie is to act as a celebrity co-host for the 8-9 a.m. hour on the May 24 edition of the morning news-and-entertainment program, when it shoots in New Jersey. Christie joins past guest hosts like Sarah Palin, who memorably joined the show for a day in April 2012, giving the show a ratings win against insurgent "Good Morning America" on ABC.

But Palin was not an active politician -- the former Alaska governor already announced she was not a candidate in that year's presidential race. Christie is not merely the governor of New Jersey -- he's also running for reelection this November, and the prospect of a presidential run looms over his future.

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"You and I both know that Sarah Palin is a fighter who will stand up to Harry Reid and his pals in the Senate to protect our Constitution in issues like amnesty, gun control and our nation's crushing debt," Cefaratti wrote.

But the Los Angeles Times, which obtained the email, reports that Palin might not have the "clear path" to victory that the Tea Party Leadership Fund says she does. A February PPP poll had Begich's approval rating at 49 percent, and winning in a potential match-up against Palin by a margin of 54-37 percent.

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Palin also tweeted:

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Historical right-wing domination of the media

Traditionally, conservatives have almost always dominated direct mail solicitations, retained the best pollsters money could buy and paid for the most celebrated advertising makers. Message discipline is the first lesson for any Republican politician. Talk radio? unquestionably controlled by conservatives.

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She was at heart a populist taking on the Conservative party’s old guard, who disdainfully referred to her as “That Woman.” The disdain was mutual. She referred to them as “the not so grand grandees.” As Thatcher later said, “It didn’t matter what they called me as long as I got the job done. I mean, to me they were ‘Those Grandees.’ They just don’t know what life is like. They haven’t been through it. And eventually if they didn’t help our cause, they had to go. But it didn’t bother me too much that they were patronizing like that. Frankly, the people, who are the true gentlemen, deal with others for what they are, not who their father was. Let’s face it: Maybe it took ‘That Woman’ to get things done, and the real reason why they said it was because they knew they just hadn’t got it within them to see things through.”

As she continues:

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