In a way, I’m not sure why the President made a jobs speech to Congress yesterday at all. Clearly all of our job worries have been solved with the passage of a patent reform bill.

It took the Obama Administration years to build a case against a few financial firms for their role in the 2008 oil spike, but at least they’ve gotten around to it. The people most equipped to know the existence of the problem were screaming to the government at the time that speculation, not supply and demand, was driving prices.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged one trading house and two individuals for illegally manipulating oil prices during the price spike of 2008, when oil reached $147 a barrel, by creating the appearance of a shortage to drive up the benchmark for crude. While the action covers oil trading in 2008, the connection to today, where speculation is seen as a primary cause for higher gas prices, is unmistakable.

The bank lobbyists are pushing hard for this exemption, which should tell you a lot about it. And Geithner appears to be right there with them.

Last night, Maria Cantwell announced her support of the Dodd Frank financial reform bill, citing a letter from Commodity Futures Trading Commission chief Gary Gensler ensuring her that the derivatives title will be rigorously enforced. Which begs the question: why in the hell did the conference committee give Scott Brown basically everything he wanted? Because Brown’s vote is now irrelevant.

If Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe were to stay on board, their move should be to flat-out take out everything Scott Brown achieved with his hedge fund loophole in the Volcker rule, welcome Maria Cantwell back to the fold, and screw Brown for his bad faith. Or they could dare Republicans to filibuster a Wall Street reform bill over and over, putting them squarely in opposition to public opinion. The more likely outcome is that they drop the bank tax and just add the implementation costs to the deficit. Path of least resistance, don’t-cha-know.

Brian Beutler reports that Hill aides told him President Obama’s Treasury Department sided with Scott Brown in the waning moments of the Wall Street reform conference committee, favoring his loophole for the Volcker rule designed to help asset management companies in Massachusetts.

The giant punchline to all this? Brown could very well vote against the conference report because of its four-year, $19 billion dollar bank levy to cover implementation.

I’ve written plenty about the potential derivatives loophole in the Senate Wall Street reform bill, which Maria Cantwell felt concerned enough about that she tried to block a cloture vote on the entire legislation (although she did give consent to waiving the Budget Act at the last minute, which also could have held up the bill). However, Cantwell’s name was not on the derivatives legislation that concerned her so. And her amendment had a co-sponsor who did not join Cantwell in protesting the vote until the concerns were met.

Maneuvers late in the day resulted in the Senate passing a financial regulation bill.

Scott Brown changed his cloture vote from “No” on Wednesday to “Yes” on Thursday. What was he offered in return?