JUST FOR FUN:

Roman Polanski has been in the news a lot lately. People have been wondering -- why now? What was the big change that led to extradition attemps now?

I think the big change that led to Polanki's extradition had nothing to do with Polanski. The Polanski extradition is a message to someone
My guess as to the intended recipient of that message? Marco Morales.

Update: OK, perhaps some of you don't know who Marco Morales is. Marco Morales was a Chicago contractor convicted of bribery in the Chicago Silver Shovel case. After conviction, Mr. Morales was to be transferred from custody in Illinois to federal custody in Michigan. The method of prisoner transfer apparently involved giving Mr. Morales a car in Illinois and telling him to drive himself from custody in Illinois to prison in Michigan.

Mr. Morales never showed up in Michigan. He next surfaced living freely in his home country of Mexico. While Mr. Morales was living in his new home in Mexico, Mr. Morale's young son was awarded 60 million dollars in consulting and contracting fees.

Also, Mr. Morales has been documented to state that he'd been threatened at gunpoint should he talk about the circumstances surrounding his bribery of Chicago officials.

It sounds to me like Mr. Morales knows something that people in Chicago don't want known. Further, it appears he's made a deal to keep his mouth shut, and that he's living up to his end of the deal. Were Mr. Morales to simply die / be killed, it's reasonable to believe that others who might have made similar deals would loose faith in their own deals. Therefore, it is in the best interests of whoever made a deal with Mr. Morales to ensure that Mr. Morales is visibly healthy and happy.

At the same time, whatever Chicago dealmaker apparently made this deal with Mr. Morales certainly has rivals. Every dealmaker in Chicago has rivals. It would be in the best interests of those rivals for Mr. Morales to talk. That way, the original dealmaker might be marginalized, and the rivals could seize the dealmaker's clout. Again, the rivals have no interest in the death of Mr. Morales. If he's dead, he can't talk about whatever it is he's being quiet about.

With Chicago having been considered for the Olympics, and with all the attendant spending, the rivalry among Chicago political factions was likely particularly intense. I think that one of the rivals came up with a plan to encourage Mr. Morales to talk at the direction of that rival. Since Mr. Morales is out of the USA and is apparently under the protection of whoever he made his deal with, the encouragement would have to be somewhat subtle. Such a plan might involve demonstrating to Mr. Morales the rival's ability to reach across international borders and arrange extradition / imprisonment for another fugitive who thought he was safe.

Roman Polanski was that other fugitive. While Chicago was preparing to gather vast sums of money through the Olympics, Mr. Polanski became an example of how US law enforcement can reach out to touch people abroad. As I wrote above, I think Mr. Polanski's fate was meant to encourage Mr. Morales to cooperate with someone.

As for who that "someone" might be -- what (possibly former) Chicago politician might have access to the levers of international power so as to reopen a thirty year old case, and might have an interest in scaring off rivals for the gigantic boodle that was to be part of the Chicago Olympics -- I leave that speculation to you.