As I expected, we have quickly reached the point in the debate on Energy in the U.S. Senate where you need to be a parliamentary expert to know exactly what's going on. 

The bottom line is this: GRIDLOCK.

With both sides talking past each other, Democrats didn't waste any time Wednesday evening in moving to put the parliamentary shackles on a bill that goes after energy speculators.

With Republicans and Democrats unable to reach a deal on amendments to that bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did what his GOP predecessors have done in the past, "filling the tree" so that Republicans can't amend the speculation bill.

Even better, Reid technically pushed the speculation bill aside, in order to bring up something else before they have a cloture vote on Friday.

Reid not only moved to shut off debate and force a final vote on the oil speculation bill, but he made a series of parliamentary moves that will allow him to keep control of the bill in other ways.

He made a motion to commit the bill back to the Agriculture Committee and offered a first degree amendment to the instructions of the motion to commit and then offered a second degree amendment to the original amendment.

That's called filling the tree.  To the average reader, it's a lot of legislative mumbo-jumbo, and that's what Republicans hope the voters will think in November.

GOP Senators wanted to offer at least seven amendments to the speculator bill, but that was too much for Democrats.

In other words, both parties are trying to figure out the plusses and minuses of going home for a summer break without doing anything substantive on energy.