It doesn't take a Krystal Ball to see how deeply leftist censorship runs -- but it can help.

The paranormally named podcast host and political commentator recently appeared on "The Joe Rogan Experience" and recounted an experience of her own while she was working as a host at the Democratic Party propaganda outlet known as MSNBC.

And it would explain a lot of how the establishment media and leftist cable networks operate.

In the story, Ball told Rogan about an incident from 2014, when Hillary Clinton's likely candidacy for the Democratic Party in 2016 was not yet a done deal.

In fact, the presidential primary campaigns were still in their infancy, but to hear Ball tell it, MSNBC executives already had decided how the nomination race was going to go.

"Shortly before I was let go, I did a monologue when Hillary Clinton was building up to run for president. It was back in 2014, so this was early on," Ball said.

"And I did this whole thing that was like, 'She sold out to Wall Street. People are going to hate this lady. She's, like, a terrible candidate for the moment. Please don't run.'

"And I was allowed to say it, right? I deliver my thing. I did it exactly how I wanted to do it.

"Afterwards, I get pulled into an office and, you know, 'Great monologue, everything's fine. But next time you do any commentary on Hillary Clinton, it has to get approved by the president of the network.'"

Bombshell insight into NBC News

Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball to Joe Rogan on how MSNBC tried to control her coverage of Hillary Clinton in 2014:

"I did a monologue when Hillary Clinton was building up to run for president... I did this whole thing that was like, 'She sold… https://t.co/x5E0EeHAuN pic.twitter.com/Rfqi3Tnh0A

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 12, 2023

That's not exactly subtle.

It's important to note here that, officially speaking, there's only Ball's word at this point that the event took place. The Western Journal has reached out to MSNBC for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Still, there are a few reasons to take this as revelation versus "allegation."

One is the reputation of Ball herself. She's a liberal but has an occasional streak of independence that allows her to buck the liberal orthodoxy. It would be easy to see her getting called on the carpet for not toeing the party line.

Another is that Ball didn't portray herself as the heroine of the story. In fact, she admitted the encounter gave her at least a case of the jitters.

"I would love to say that didn't affect me and I was just there to be truth-teller, but listen, I'm a human being," she told Rogan. "I'm sure I responded to the incentives of that system of like, 'I don't want to get in trouble with the boss.' You know, so that's the way that it works."

And a third reason to believe it is that, let's face it, this is MSNBC we're talking about. It's the network that employs Rachel Maddow. The home of "Morning Joe" Scarborough and his liberal parroting lady love. This is the network that makes CNN look positively centrist.

[firefly_poll]

Does any sensible person doubt an MSNBC executive would put his thumb firmly on the scale of the network's commentary to favor the political candidate adored by the liberal establishment, even if her announcement wasn't going to come until 2015?

Does anyone think a gatekeeper of the establishment's information system would feel ethically obligated to publicize that intervention to the credulous viewers?

There were certainly plenty of social media commenters who had no problem believing it.

Why is Hillary so protected on a high level?

— Beth Estes (@bethestesfitnes) February 12, 2023

Everyone of this Family Clan is protected.

— Alaama (@mishkasfox) February 13, 2023

She's one of the better left-aligned journalists. Krystal Ball does solid reporting. She's one of the few left aligned journalists I read / watch.

— Jessica Hyde (@Mashugana_Kat) February 13, 2023

Everyone knows @msnbc is not a news organization. Just liberal propaganda.

— Thomas Sullivan Magnum (@SidFinchy) February 13, 2023

Of course, there were more than a few respondents who claimed the story represented nothing new -- that any news network, any newspaper, any news organization controls the information it conveys. That's a point Ball made toward the end of her comments.

That's true to some extent, of course. He who pays the piper calls the tune -- and that's as true for media outlets as it is in dance halls.

You won't find Marxists at The Wall Street Journal. You won't find many Hayek fans on the opinion pages of The New York Times. And it will likely be a cold day in hell before you'd find communists or Grammy-winning Satanists published by The Western Journal.

But for an allegedly mainstream news network to squelch criticism of a potential presidential candidate -- and a personality of Hillary Clinton's stature -- two years in advance of the primaries speaks to a level of organization and censorship control of almost Stalinist rigidity.

The fact that it was Hillary Clinton and MSNBC was squashing an attack from the left shows how prescient it was. Remember, it was far-left Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders who nearly took the nomination from Clinton in 2016.

In the end, though, the country as a whole is paying a steep price for that MSNBC executive intervention.

If Hillary had not run, maybe Joe Biden would have. If Joe Biden had won the nomination, maybe Donald Trump would have beaten him instead in the 2016 election.

Since the "Russia collusion" hoax was the brainchild of the Hillary Clinton campaign, it's a good possibility the long, national nightmare of a media-borne hoax would have been avoided.

Heck, it's even possible China wouldn't have unleashed a pandemic on the globe that had killed almost 7 million as of Tuesday and is the primary reason Biden is in the White House today.

That's an alternative history, though.

And we are where we are thanks in large part to the leftist control of networks like MSNBC.

And no crystal ball in the world is going to change that.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.