Gonzalo Curiel was born in Indiana to parents who came to this country from Mexico.

He graduated from high school, went off to college, got his law degree and became an aggressive prosecutor.

He’s now a federal district judge. He’s an all-American guy, from what I know of him.

That, however, hasn’t stopped the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, one Donald J. Trump, from launching a scurrilous attack on Judge Curiel. The reason for his attack? Trump called Curiel “a Mexican.” He called him a “disgrace,” and said other judges need to examine Judge Curiel.

Curiel, of course, is not “a Mexican.” He’s as American as Trump, whose own mother also was an immigrant.

That didn’t stop Trump from shouting from a campaign podium that Curiel needs to recuse himself from a case he is hearing involving the now-defunct Trump University. It seems that Curiel’s ethnicity disqualifies him from hearing the case because, according to Trump, he “hates” the nominee-to-be because of Trump’s inflammatory statements about Mexican immigrants.

Y’all, this is the latest in an interminable line of insults and provocation that have poured out of Trump’s pie hole ever since he announced his intention to seek the GOP presidential nomination.

Judge Curiel’s standing as a federal judge hearing this case is as solid as it gets. Trump’s suggestion that he cannot judge this case fairly is yet another attempt to denigrate someone solely on the basis of his ethnicity.

Trump’s accusations against Curiel are going to remain unchallenged by the target, the judge himself. As the Atlantic magazine noted: “Corrosive personal attacks aren’t new behavior for the presumptive Republican nominee. But unlike other targets of Trump’s ire, Curiel cannot defend himself in any forum. He acknowledged in an order last Friday that Trump had ‘placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue,’ but will almost certainly go no further than that observation. Curiel is bound by the judicial code of ethics, which says that federal judges ‘should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court,’ including their own. The code also says judges ‘should not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism.’”

Here’s the rest of the article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/donald-trump-gonzalo-curiel/485636/

If only another disgraceful exhibition of intemperance would gain traction among those who keep standing behind this guy. Who’s to say what effect, if any, these latest remarks are going to have?

From my perch in the middle of what’s going to be called Trump Country, it’s just one more example of a presumptive presidential nominee’s unfitness for the job he is seeking.