Terrence T. Mcdonald, New Jersey Monitor

NEW BRUNSWICK — In a crowded room on the Rutgers campus on Thursday, two state senators tried to impart the wisdom of political civility to students at the very moment our state’s gubernatorial race was devolving into the campaign’s ugliest day yet.

Sen. Jon Bramnick, a Republican, and Sen. Joe Cryan, a Democrat, are on what they’re calling a college civility tour, one they announced after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed on Sept. 10. I have my doubts about whether two lawmakers from New Jersey can help drag American politics out of the sewer, so I visited Rutgers to see if Bramnick and Cryan would dispel my doubts.

Momentarily, they did. Bramnick spoke somberly about the strife and violence of the 1960s and how he fears those days are returning, and Cryan was sincere when he urged the students to remember that we don’t all live life’s experiences the same way....

The Trump administration’s contempt for the law and for the people of New Jersey is on full display yet again in the new fight over control of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

With its push to keep a Trump loyalist as our state’s chief federal prosecutor, the White House is not only ignoring the law, but also tarnishing the reputation of judges appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and sowing chaos in a state that’s already seeing enough chaos these days, thank you very much.

Here are the details: Alina Habba, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump, was appointed interim U.S. attorney back in March, but her 120-day appointment expires this week and Trump only just nominated her for confirmation by the U.S. Senate, so her nomination has yet to move. Federal law says the state’s federal judges can name her replacement until the Senate votes to confirm her, so on Tuesday they announced they chose Habba’s deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace....

Every queer person knows what it’s like to be stuck at a holiday dinner next to someone who makes us cringe when they speak.

Sometimes they don’t say anything outright offensive — nothing that would get bleeped on network television — but often what comes out of their mouths represents a relic of a more troubling time for us.

That’s the feeling I get reading Jeff Brindle’s emails. ...

The New Jersey chapter of an international ironworkers union is facing allegations that one of its officers gave preferential job treatment to its white workers, denied Black workers a chance to work on high-profile lucrative jobs, and retaliated against a worker who complained about his use of a common racial epithet.

New Jersey’s civil rights division on Tuesday announced it is moving forward with a complaint filed by one of the union’s Black members that alleges she and other Black union workers received one- or two-day assignments while their white coworkers nabbed such long-term jobs as those at Newark airport, the Bayonne Bridge, and the American Dream mall.

The union, Ironworkers Local 11, a local chapter of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Ironworkers Union, AFL-CIO, did not return a request for comment. In a statement to state officials investigating the matter, the union denied the Black union member’s allegations. ...

Democrats may need an intervention to end their Donald Trump addiction, if Tuesday's election results didn't already send that message.

Take Gov. Phil Murphy's campaign. From his campaign flyers — every one I received had Trump as its main image — to the “Stop the Trump Team" signs that lined Route 3 in the days before Election Day, a casual voter may have assumed Murphy's challenger was the former president, not Jack Ciattarelli.

It was much the same, perhaps worse, in Virginia, where Democrat Terry McAuliffe could barely utter a sentence about his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, without mentioning Trump. Youngkin defeated McAuliffe Tuesday after voters all over that very Democratic state lurched right....