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And speaking of private equity (see our previous post), there is more chatter today that the owners of HCA are getting ready for a sale of stock in the hospital chain that could be the biggest U.S. IPO in two years.

HCA, the nation’s largest hospital operator by revenue, has been doing very well despite the economy and uncertainties connected with the health overhaul. With the operating environment looking to get stronger still, HCA’s owners are preparing to raise between $2.5 billion and $3 billion and maybe as much as $4 billion, Bloomberg News reported today.

HCA was acquired in a leveraged buyout four years ago that was led by private-equity groups KKR and Bain Capital, both of which declined to comment on a possible IPO, as did HCA, Bloomberg said. Others involved in the buyout included the Frist family, who co-founded Hospital Corp. of America. Bloomberg said money raised in the IPO would reduce HCA’s debt, which stood at $25.7 billion at year end.

Of course, there has been repeated talk of an IPO at HCA, which the WSJ ranks among “the most successful deals struck during the buyout boom from 2005-2007.” Helping fuel the talk these days is that the company is coming off strong financial results in 2009 and the outlook is cleared with the lifting of the overhaul-related worries.

Photo: Bloomberg News

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As analysts scramble to downgrade shares in Shoppers Drug Mart Corp., in the wake of damaging proposals to change
how pharmacists are reimbursed, Canadian Tire Corp., one of Canada's other well known retailers, is quietly garnering praise from the Street  

Following the company's investor day on Wednesday, Keith Howlett, an analyst at Desjardins Securities increased his price target on Canadian Tire to $62 from $57 and maintained his Buy rating. 

"Our reaction to the company's strategic and operating plans is generally positive," he said in a note to clients.

"After the recent years of substantial investment in square footage growth and supply chain expansion, management is now squarely focused on maximizing productivity of its existing platform, and closing the gap between its best and worst performing stores."

Vishal Shreedhar, an analyst at UBS AG, also increased his price target on the stock, from $62 to $63. He left his Buy rating unchanged.  

He said write-offs have likely peaked, while same store sales growth and returns in retail are likely to improve based on lower sustainable capex, improving economic conditions and good early sales performance from Canadian Tire's new Smart store concept.

"We believe valuation is attractive in the context of improving performance," Mr. Shreedhar said in a note to clients.

David Pett

Posted by John Byrne at 11:22 a.m.; updated at 3:26 p.m.

Mayor Richard Daley’s new choice to lead the Chicago Park District board said today he expects to face the challenge of providing as many park programs as possible to
city residents in spite of a shrinking budget.


 


"I think we all have to acknowledge that’s what is going on at all
levels of government," said Dr. Bryan Traubert, an ophthalmologist and philanthropist who’s married to prominent Chicagoan Penny Pritzker.

Traubert, however, declined to discuss particular programs he will emphasize and
those that might be in danger of getting cut, citing his newness to the post.

"I would really have to go on a listening tour to get a better idea of
the specifics of the situation in neighborhood parks across the city,"
Traubert said. "It’s too early for me to get into the specifics."

Traubert, 55, is poised to become park board president, replacing Gery Chico, a longtime Daley troubleshooter who’s been tapped to lead the City Colleges of Chicago board. Traubert is on the Noble Street Charter Schools board. And he’s chairman of Marwen, an organization that provides art instruction and college counseling to Chicago Public Schools students.

He also chairs Chicago Run, which coordinates fitness programs for CPS students. Traubert said he thinks it’s that dedication to getting children in shape — rather than his connection to the Pritzker family — that put him on the mayor’s radar. Pritzker served as national finance chair for President Barack
Obama’s successful 2008 campaign.

 

Traubert said he has talked with Daley on several occasions about the importance of getting children involved in exercising in order to keep them from getting fat and to improve their performance in school.

 

"I would like to think that brought me to the mayor’s attention," Traubert said of Daley’s nomination, which must be considered by the City Council and the Park District Board before it becomes official. That process is likely to be a formality.

Does it restrict U.S. missile defense? Concede too much to the Russians? Standardize rules for counting the nuclear payloads on deployed bombers? What about telemetry?????

Well, now you can answer all these questions to your satisfaction.

A team of engineers from San Diego State University will use a small unmanned aircraft Thursday to search for a missing woman in Malibu.

The drone, equipped with high-resolution cameras, will be able to dip into canyons that search teams have had difficulty accessing by helicopter and on foot, said Chip Croft, who has helped lead the search for Mitrice Richardson since she went missing in September.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will assist with the drone search and helped cover the costs to bring it to Malibu, Croft said.

The drone, which is from SDSU’s Immersive Visualization Center, has been used in the past to find the remains of missing people after traditional search efforts fail.
Croft, who is a working on a documentary about Richardson’s disappearance, said he first learned about the drone after talking to the family of Amber Dubois, an Escondido teenager who disappeared last year.

The drone was used in the high-profile search for Chelsea King, a San Diego teenager who went missing Feb. 25. 

Richardson, 24, a Cal State Fullerton graduate, disappeared after she was released from the Malibu-Lost Hills sheriff’s station after midnight on Sept. 17, 2009, without a car, purse or cellphone.
Richardson had been arrested earlier that night at a Malibu restaurant for not paying her bill. Restaurant staff told police she was acting strangely.

Authorities have searched the hills and canyons of Malibu several times. So far, they have found no trace of her.

— Kate Linthicum

Photo: Mitrice Richardson.

Jose Reyes hasn’t appeared in a regular season game since May 20, 2009, but he’s eligible to return from the disabled list on Saturday, and it sounds like he’ll rejoin the Mets immediately.

"Barring any setbacks," added manager Jerry Manuel, as if you needed to hear it. Reyes is basically a walking setback. He’s spent the past week in extended spring training, doing all the things you drafted him to do: getting on base, stealing, scoring runs. His hamstrings are currently functional and his thyroid levels have returned to normal. Prepare to finally drag him off your fantasy roster’s DL. New York will face John Lannan(notes) on Saturday and Livan Hernandez(notes) on
Sunday, so you can reasonably expect Reyes to make a weekend fantasy contribution. 

Earlier this spring, Manuel had been toying with the idea of sliding Reyes down to the No. 3 spot in the batting order, but those plans changed when the shortstop was shelved in early March. When Reyes returns — if he returns, barring setbacks, etc. — you can expect to see his name at the top of the Mets lineup card.

Let’s hear your guess for Reyes’ total number of 2010 at-bats in comments. I’ll get the bidding started at 591, but I’m bullish (and heavily invested). The closest guesser wins Alex Cora(notes) — not a replica, but the actual Cora.

—

Photo via Getty Images 

If you’ve been waiting for what seems like forever for an update to be released for the Samsung Moment, your time has come. We’ve already shown you Android 2.1 on the Moment (our poor example above is still waiting, as you can see), and now a leaked ROM is available. Looks like it’s going to take a little work to get it on there, but if you’ve been waiting this long … [SDX-Developers via Android Police] Thanks, Artem!

When the topic of flying saucers comes up, someone inevitably talks about the government’s secret installation in the Nevada desert called Area 51. The base has been public knowledge for a long time, though I suspect a lot of folks heard about it through the movie “Independence Day”. The idea is that the alien spaceships that crashed at Roswell New Mexico and other sites were carted off to Area 51, and the technology there examined and reverse engineered to create a lot of modern tech today.

You can just guess what I think of this theory.

But I’ll spell it out: it’s nonsense. Yes, Area 51 exists, but the idea that we keep alien tech there is pretty silly. First, all our technology has a clear line of antecedents; the transistor, velcro, smart metals, and so on didn’t just pop up ex nihilo as some UFO enthusiasts claim.

Second, we have a simpler and more logical line of reasoning here. We know that the military has a black budget to create advanced tech. They don’t want our enemies to know what’s going on, and the Nevada desert is pretty isolated. When the news came out that a base was out there, of course the government’s first line of defense is to deny it. When the rumors and evidence pile up, they admit it exists, but won’t say what it’s for. Of course they don’t! That’s kinda the point of it being a secret.

And we know that advanced tech comes from the military; the SR 71 Blackbird is an incredible piece of engineering, and it was designed in the 1960s. Stealth tech can be thought of in a similar way, and it’s decades old as well. They are clearly designing amazing stuff at Area 51 and perhaps other locations, and this is exactly the sort of hardware that we need to keep secret. Like it or not, there are bad guys out there who would love to see America fall, and this kind of technology helps prevent that from happening.

Jumping from that to harboring aliens and their flying saucers is a wee bit of jump of logic. Of course, I have said for years that I’m sure the government loves the UFO rumors, since it takes the pressure off the real secrets there.

And so it goes: an article in the Statesman corroborates that view. Several Area 51 vets have come out and discussed recently declassified information. My favorite bit is at the very end:

[Area 51 radar specialist] Barnes thinks the Air Force and the CIA didn’t mind the stories about alien spacecraft. They helped cover up the real secret planes that were being tested.

Ya think? Anyway, while I may not be happy with everything that supposedly goes on at Area 51, I can be reasonably — stress the word reasonably — sure that it involves stuff developed right here on good old planet Earth.

Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to James Oberg.

Over the past several years, the term “smart grid” has grown from a buzzword to a working reality. Millions of two-way communicating, digital smart meters have been deployed, distribution grid sensors and control systems are coming online, demand response devices are shedding peak power in homes and businesses, and utilities are tying together the overarching networks and software systems to make them all work. But this is just the start. Pike Research predicts that $200 billion will be invested in smart grid infrastructure around the world in the next five years — a figure that would make the Department of Energy’s $4 billion smart grid stimulus boost look like little more than a down payment.

But there’s still a variety questions that remain unanswered when it comes to just what a next-generation smart grid network will look like. How much bandwidth do utilities need, will utilities want to rent or own the networks, will smart meters continue to play a key role, will the wireless standard WiMAX make a dent in the digital grid, and how much energy data will be needed to stimulate innovation but protect privacy? We’ll be digging into some of these smart grid network issues at our Green:Net conference on April 29 in San Francisco and we’ll hear from execs from Silver Spring Networks, IBM, Cisco, Sprint and Motorola. Here’s 5 points of debate:

1). Bandwidth and Latency: How much bandwidth will be needed? Most of the communications networks being deployed for the smart grid today are based on lower-bandwidth, lower-cost technologies meant to support smart meters. Since most smart meters don’t “talk” to one another that often — they may send back signals only once every 15 minutes or hourly — it’s worth going with lower functionality to save money. Utilities have to get all their infrastructure costs approved by public utility commissions, so they commonly want to spend as little as possible.

But a whole host of smart grid functions could need more robust networks. Controlling switches and breakers on distribution grids requires very low latency and high reliability, while establishing a more data-rich and consistent connection with utility customers could need higher bandwidth. Some utilities are already considering higher-bandwidth options like WiMAX, as well as wide-area WiFi from companies like Tropos Networks. Cellular carriers are also pitching their higher bandwidth 3G and 4G networks to utilities for rent.

2). Rent or Own: Building and owning a network, and renting space on a commercial network, present unique advantages and challenges for utilities. Owning the network gives the utility control and avoids any issue of having to share bandwidth with other telecom customers. In addition regulated utilities also get to earn profits on capital expenses like building their own networks.

On the other hand, renting space on a network allows a utility to avoid the upfront costs of building a network, and also could offer the utility the tech advances that the large telecoms can deliver. Phone companies have been working hard to develop utility-friendly contracts, and vendors like SmartSynch have built businesses around delivering smart grid communications over cellular networks.

3). WiMAX Smart Grid: WiMAX is the high-speed wireless technology that’s been taken up by Sprint (s) and Clearwire as an alternative to the Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology being developed by the other major cellular carriers. It’s an open standard with products being developed by big vendors including General Electric, Motorola and Intel that can be deployed in utility-owned networks. Utilities experimenting with WiMAX for smart grid include CenterPoint Energy, National Grid, San Diego Gas & Electric and Consumers Energy.

WiMAX for the smart grid has been getting a lot more attention as of late, courtesy of its chief champion in the industry, San Francisco-based startup Grid Net. In the last six months Grid Net has landed some utility contracts and claimed two coups — an equity investment from Cisco and the hiring of Andres Carvallo, a well-known smart grid executive from Austin Energy, as its new chief strategy officer.

What WiMAX has going against it at present is high cost and low availability. Grid Net CEO Ray Bell previously noted that WiMAX chipsets cost around $36, but he expects that price to fall to about $12 and keep dropping as more are produced. And for any utility that wants to rent space on a public WiMAX network rather than build their own, there’s the question of coverage. In the U.S. Sprint and Clearwire have been slow to roll out their public WiMAX networks, and there were only about 3.9 million subscribers as of late last year.

4). Are Smart Meters The Key? Smart meters — the two-way talking meters that serve as cash register, communications gateway and customer-side sensor device for utilities — have been the public face of the smart grid. The DOE smart grid stimulus program is expected to lead to some 18 million smart meters being installed in the next three years.

But the initial public response to them hasn’t been so good — lawsuits are underway in California and Texas, with customers claiming their new smart meters have caused their electricity bills to skyrocket. The utilities involved say the meters are working properly, but there’s no doubt that the complaints have been a public relations setback.

Beyond the backlash, some smart grid services that smart meters are supposed to one day provide like outage detection to help utilities spot and correct power failures, and voltage monitoring to help grid operators keep power smooth, could be delivered more cheaply and effectively by distribution automation systems. Pike Research estimates distribution automation systems will make up nearly a quarter of global smart grid investment over the next five years.

The most closely watched future functionality for smart meters is as a gateway to home area networks (HANs) that can connect to interfaces or Web portals for homeowners to track and manage their energy use. But much of the usefulness of the consumer-utility connection — such as delivering changing real-time prices to customers — could be hard to do over today’s smart meter networks.

At the same time, telecommunications and cable companies are envisioning home energy networks connected via their own broadband connections, and some startups are looking at ways to leverage home security or entertainment systems to do energy monitoring. All of these factors have likely played into Pike Research’s prediction last year that smart meters would only make up 11 percent of the global smart grid investment predicted over the next 5 years.

5). Balancing Amounts of Energy Data: This week, a who’s who consortium of smart grid startups, investors and corporate heavyweights like Google, GE and Intel sent a letter to President Obama demanding that the federal government make policies to give Americans access to their energy usage data. But opening up smart grid data could also present privacy and security concerns, and utilities and regulators are worried about the mishaps that might result. Concerns range from putting home energy data in the hands of scammers, telemarketers or overzealous law enforcement officials, to hackers taking down the grid by getting smart meters to malfunction.

Companies like Google have a vested interest in freeing energy data for wider use. The search engine giant is one of many developing a home energy platform that will need utility customer data to work well — Microsoft is another, and there are dozens of startups competing in the same field. Limiting the availability of smart grid data could well put a brake on the innovation that could result from these efforts. But utilities and regulators will be hard-pressed to balance those needs against the very real need to keep the grid reliable — and to keep their customers from losing their privacy.

Images courtesy of JeffersonDavis’ photostream, Firas’ photostream, BobDevlin’s photostream, Somewhat Frank’s photostream, Darwin Bell’s photostream, and alancleaver_2000’s photostream.

A recall of all Camolyn Eye Drops and Fisiolin Nasal Drops has been issued after it was discovered that they may not be sterile, which could cause infections or blindness. 

The nasal and eye drop recall was announced on Wednesday by FDA. According to a press release from the manufacturer, US Oftalmi Corporation, the recall was initiated after it was determined that conditions in the manufacturing facility could not guarantee the sterility of the drops. However, there have been no injuries or reports of problems from consumers.

The Camolyn Eye Drops recall and Fisiolin Nasal Drops recall affects all over-the-counter drops under those labels, including Camolyn Homeopathic; Camolyn Plus, Naphazoline + Chamomile; Camolyn Refresh; Camolyn-A, Naphazoline + Pheniramine; and Fisiolin Nasal Drops Sodium Chloride Pediatric Uses. All of the recalled eye drops and nasal drops were distributed nationwide to food and drug distributors and were packaged in 15 mL plastic bottles.

If a consumer uses non-sterile drops, they could develop an infection. Some eye infections could potentially lead to blindness. However, US Oftalmi has said that it believes the likelihood of users experience a severe adverse reaction is remote.

The company has ceased production of the nasal and eye drops until the manufacturing problem can be solved. It is recommended that any consumers with the recalled eye and nasal drops discard them immediately.

Anyone who experiences an adverse reaction from this product should report the incident to the FDA’s MedWatch Program at www.fda.gov/medwatch.

This is a brilliant idea for an iPhone app, but Nooka should actually get it made—it wouldn’t take too much extra elbow grease to make custom watches based on people’s iPhone snaps. More »

Tragic bus accident result shows why Michigan law must change

Talk about putting form over substance. That’s exactly what happened after a SMART bus accident caused serious injuries to a completely innocent woman. SMART bus relied upon putting form over substance to allow it to escape responsibility for serious, debilitating personal injuries it caused one of its most vulnerable wheelchair-bound passengers.

In Eugene Rose v. Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation [SMART bus], et al., SMART bus got Eugene Rose’s lawsuit thrown out of court by insisting it didn’t have proper “notice” of the injuries Ms. Rose suffered in a Detroit accident involving one of its buses – even though SMART bus knew about both the bus accident and the serious nature of Ms. Rose’s injuries.

You see, Michigan residents are actually punished if they don’t run to a lawyer right away after if they’ve been injured in a bus accident. And they are punished in the most drastic way – they lose any right to sue for their injuries, no matter how serious or catastrophic those injuries may be.

This is all because of a tiny loophole that requires strict notice be provided by accident victims within 60 days. No exceptions. No room for common sense. No regard for public policy or reaching a just result. And no case better illustrates this than what happened to Eugene Rose after her bus accident.

On April 23, 2006, Ms. Rose, who was in a three-wheel, motorized wheelchair, rode as a passenger on a SMART bus. When the bus took a sharp turn, it caused Mrs. Rose’s unsecured wheelchair to tip over, throwing her to the floor. She suffered very serious injuries that were obvious at the scene.  In fact, she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, having suffered a fractured hip and left femur.

SMART certainly knew instantly all about Ms. Rose and her injuries. It was a SMART bus that caused the accident, and the bus was being driven by a SMART bus employee.  Reports had to be filled out. In fact, SMART bus received incident reports, as well as a police report, presumably, from both its own bus driver and from the property owner on whose property the accident occurred.

Nevertheless, to avoid responsibility for the serious injuries it inflicted, SMART bus complained that Ms. Rose shouldn’t be able to sue because she hadn’t personally told SMART bus about her bus-accident-related injuries within 60 days of the accident.

60 Days?

Never mind that SMART bus had already been told what happened by its own driver and by a property owner.

Sounds ludicrous, right?

But what’s even more ludicrous is it was enough to get SMART bus off the hook. SMART escaped all responsibility for causing Ms. Roses’ injuries because she had not personally given SMART notice within 60 days.

Sadly, four Michigan judges bought into SMART bus’s argument. Wayne County Circuit Court Judge John A. Murphy relied on it to grant SMART bus’s motion to dismiss, and Michigan Court of Appeals Judges Deborah A. Servitto, Richard A. Bandstra, and Karen M. Fort Hood affirmed Murphy’s decision to throw Ms. Rose’s personal injury lawsuit out.

It actually isn’t their fault.  Judges are duty bound to follow the law.  The fault lies with our Michigan law. It’s very, very dumb. SMART took advantage of a very dumb law, with a public policy that could not be worse for Michigan residents and for all people who ride buses or depend upon public transportation.

All of the judges agreed with SMART bus’s “form over substance” contention that the “notice” law for transportation authorities — which protects negligent bus operators like SMART bus at the expense of innocent, powerless, legally-untrained passengers like Ms. Rose — applied in this case to compel the dismissal of Ms. Rose’s lawsuit.

The law, MCL 124.419, says that any public transportation authority must have “written notice of any claim based upon injury to persons or property shall be served upon the [transportational] authority no later than 60 days from the occurrence through which such injury is sustained …”

That was enough for the judges.  And that was it for Ms. Rose. “That SMART was provided an incident report by its own employee, and by the shopping center where the injury occurred does not suffice to meet [the statutory notice] requirement,” the Court of Appeals judges said.

Consequently, SMART bus will not be held accountable for the injuries its negligence caused Ms. Rose to suffer. And, to me, that’s just plain dumb.

– Steven M. Gursten is recognized as one of the nation’s top experts in serious car and truck accident injury cases and automobile insurance no-fault litigation. Michigan Auto Law has received the largest reported jury verdict for an automobile accident case in Michigan in seven of the past 10 years, including 2009, according to published year-end verdicts and settlements reports.

– Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, by Jason McHuff

Related information:

Michigan Truck Accident Resource Center

Attendant Care Benefits Lawyer Video

Michigan Truck Accident Facts and Causes

How Does a Detroit Bus Driver Cause 20 Car Accidents But Have a Perfect Driving Record?

Michigan Auto Law is the largest law firm exclusively handling car accident, truck accident and motorcycle accident cases throughout the state. Call (800) 777-0028 if you’ve been injured in an auto accident, and would like to speak to a lawyer.

This Sunday, April 11th, watch the best and brightest stars of web television, top Hollywood talent, decision makers, and influencers shaping online entertainment come together to celebrate web TV and find out who will take home the 2010 Streamy Awards!

Streamed live from the red carpet ceremony at the historic Orpheum Theater in downtown Los Angeles, the Streamy Awards is the first and most prestigious awards ceremony devoted to honoring excellence in web television. The Streamy Awards Show will present awards for achievements in categories spanning multiple disciplines of web television and feature entertainment acts from some of the Internet’s most-watched performers.

Tune into www.streamys.org at 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 11, to catch all the live-streamed action. The Awards Ceremony will be proceeded by a live Red Carpet pre-show starting at 4:00 p.m. PST/7:00 p.m. ET.

Is the tablet revolution here? Apple iPad, reviewed by Noah. Part 2 of 2.

The latest side effect of the poor labor market for new college grads: Lower salaries.

Those who are graduating in the spring and land a job will see average starting salary offers fall 1.7% from last year to $47,673, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ spring salary survey. The survey is based on data from college and university career services offices for students graduating with bachelors degrees.

To be sure, that average salary doesn’t apply to all types of graduates. Depending on their career path, some are much better — and much worse — off than others.

Those with computer-related degrees are expected to see one of the largest increases in offers — rising to $58,746, on average, 5.8%, higher than a year earlier. For computer-science majors, offers are 4.7% higher for an average salary of $60,426.

Engineering graduates are also better off than last year, led by salary increases for electrical, chemical and civil engineers.

Meanwhile, as Wall Street continues to gain strength, starting salaries rose for finance majors to $50,546, up 1.6% from last year. Offers for accounting majors are up slightly as well.

Those with liberal arts degrees are among the worst off. Their average salaries have fallen 8.9% from last year to $33,540. But graduates with business administration and management and marketing degrees are in a tough spot too. Salary offers for business administration and management grads are down 8% to $42,094. And offers for marketing graduates fell 2.1% to $42,710.

New York City has been attacked by all manner of monsters and alien invaders, but never before have its assailants been so, well, low-res.

A magnificent new video from Patrick Jean and One More Production shows an assault on the city that begins when a stream of pixels explode out of TV screen. Soon, the unwary streets of Manhattan are under attack from pixellated Space Invaders. Pac-Man runs amok in the subway stations, Tetris blocks slam down on skyscrapers, and Donkey Kong stands atop the Empire State Building.

For anyone whose childhood dreams were invaded by these crude villains, the video is pure nostalgic delight. Watch and enjoy.

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Discoblog: The Mother of all Rube Goldberg Machines!

Pressure from Google Chrome and, increasingly, from other main players in the web-browser market is forcing Mozilla to change its ways. Most notably, it’s starting to rethink its update schedule and system for Firefox and favoring small incremental updates, a la Chrome, instead of major releases months or years apart.

This is … (read more)

The theme of this week, as it seems to be many weeks, is RIM vs. its closest competitors. The iPhone has seen an increasing marketshare, and it’s such a sexy device that people like to predict that it will soon overtake the old, stuffy BlackBerry. Now that Android is gaining traction, pundits have plenty more to discuss. Will Apple and Google soon rid the mobile space of RIM? Hardly. But people will continue to talk about it.

(more…)

Minneapolis, Minn. — In an effort to build its credibility and influence nationwide, the tea party movement on Thursday announced the formation of a “federation” of tea party groups.

Mark Shroder, a member of the Memphis Tea Party, told a crowd of roughly 200 conservative activists gathered outside the state capitol that 21 factions of the movement will form the National Federation Tea Party. Shroder said the federation will act as a “rapid response” to “misinformation” allegedly put forth by the “mainstream media.”

The National Federation Tea Party includes groups like the Tea Party Express, which is currently on a 42-city bus tour across the country, as well as Tea Party Nation, ResistNet, Constitutional TEA Party and American Grassroots Coalition.

But the conservative movement, which has prided itself on its refusal to formally merge with the Republican Party, refuted claims Thursday that the tea party seeks to form its own political party.

“That would be political suicide,” Mark Williams, chairman of Tea Party Express told FoxNews.com. “America is a two party system and to create a third party is to reinvent the wheel. This federation was formed simply as a rapid response to put out brushfires in the mainstream media.”

“This is a not a single leadership formation,” added Shroder.

The federation also includes several conservative “affiliate groups” like Aemricans for Prosperity, Ameircan for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks and Citizens United.