"Amtrak Joe" Biden was a long-distance commuter for many years because he wanted to be back with his family in Delaware after each day in Washington (this was after he'd lost his first wife and oldest child in a car accident). Amongst America's politicians he's one of the most in favour of reinvigorating the passenger rail network.
Now that is a good comment.
Admirable sentiment.
Biden's election, which now seems likely, will be good for Amtrak and urban rail transit but bad for the UK, particularly post Brexit. He is likely to side with Eire and by inference the EU in any dispute/conflict the UK has with them.
Whoever the Democratic candidate was that was always going to be the case, it was just the degree. As someone who has spent a very long time in politics, I think that Biden would be more pragmatic than most. Our Prime Minister's statement about the last Democratic president and his background will not have helped matters!
I'd say on balance we benefit from a more fair and predictable US foreign policy and a return to international agreements and institutions, even if our specific interests (which may of course just be the interests of the clique that runs our government) aren't always served.
If by "Eire" you mean Ireland then it's to be expected that the USA will prioritise relations with the block with a population of 400+ million over the needs of an island and a quarter of some 65 million. The "special relationship" only goes so far.
I guess it's a small sacrifice to save the free world.
I don't think it will be bad for the UK i will stop Boris behaving like Poundland Trump at times, and it will make a trade deal with the EU more important which should be a priority anyway. If Trump wins I think it highly likely Boris will walk away from an EU trade deal in favour of an iffy trade deal with Trump
The main issue is that they own very little of the track outside the Washington/New York corridor, so they're at the mercy of the freight companies. Not sure what any president can do about that without buying out the trackage.
That would essentially be a bung to the freight companies, and I wouldn't put it past them to keep producing "analysis" that shows that they need more money to offset their loss of profits. It might also have the effect of pushing some long-distance freight onto the highway.
They could but I expect it would be expensive and the problem with fast medium distance routes compared to Europe is that a lot of European Cities are quite compact compared to USA Cities so your journey to your final destination from the station may be much longer, Plus most USA cities are still more car friendly than European ones. In any case if Biden does win I doubt Amtrak will be a top priority.
Is he potentially under threat of ending up in court or possibly even prison once he’s left the White House and doesn’t have the ability to block investigations/pardon people on his side etc?
Indeed so. Many American cities are urban sprawls with no recognizable centre, in the inner city there is so much car parking that everything else is too far to get to without driving, and local public transport is pretty desultory. Like in the UK but much more so, getting people onto trains also involves sorting out the transit links to the stations.
There are still independent federal and state prosecutors, such as those who indicted Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort and are now onto his tax affairs. If Trump loses then the apparent convention that a sitting president can only be impeached not indicted no longer applies, and if the Republicans lose the Senate but Trump wins then I'd say another impeachment would follow quite soon.
Also, a presidential pardon would only have an effect on Federal offences, he would still be liable for State prosecutions. So he still face the prospect of jail time based on the investigations being conducted by New York prosecutors.
What is the likelihood of something like that happening to him if he leaves office this year? Are we talking low, medium or high here?
The think I read suggested he'd resign in favour of Pence, who would then pardon him before handing over to Biden in January. But whoever wrote that had probably also forgotten about the issue of State prosecutions.
