Case of Wall Street greed gone too far

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was one of the executives whose stock award was accelerated to beat higher tax rate.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Goldman Sachs granted $65 million in stock to execs before new tax rates began


• Susan Antilla says the firm's CEO had endorsed higher rates, called for entitlement cuts


• She says Goldman benefits from the implicit promise that U.S. will bail it out


• Antilla: It was unseemly for Goldman to rush the payments to shield execs from new rates

Editor's note: Susan Antilla is a columnist at Bloomberg View and a contributor to TheStreet.com. She has written about finance for more than 30 years. She is author of "Tales From the Boom-Boom Room: The Landmark Legal Battles That Exposed Wall Street's Shocking Culture of Sexual Harassment." Follow her on Twitter @antillaview.

(CNN) -- Nobody likes to pay taxes, so can you blame the good folks at Goldman Sachs & Co. for doing what they could to avoid the higher rates that kicked in on January 1?

While the rest of us were donning our party clothes on New Year's Eve, the legal worker bees at Goldman were pushing the send button on 10 regulatory filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

By the time the ball dropped in Times Square, regulators had been notified that $65 million in Goldman stock had been granted a month early, helping a cluster of powerful multimillionaire executives trim their tax tab.

Among the 10 who shared that $65 million, Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn and Chief Financial Officer David Viniar wound up with $8.4 million apiece in Goldman stock.

Susan Antilla

Blankfein's compensation in 2011 was $16.2 million. Cohn and Viniar that year made $15.8 million. Even Gordon Gekko would be impressed to see that bosses making that much money were able to catch a tax break for a couple hundred thousand.

The 10 executives who skirted 2013's higher rates were not the only Goldmanites who benefited from the "accelerated" vesting. Michael DuVally, a Goldman spokesman, acknowledged there was "a group larger than" the 10 but declined to say how many. DuVally would not comment on who made the decision to grant the shares early.

The shrewd Goldman move is hardly unique among rich business executives or even 99 percenters of more modest means. It was no secret that higher taxes were coming this year, and taxpayers of all shapes and sizes did what they could to ensure that "tax events" would occur in 2012.

Even environmental activist and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore tried, albeit without success, to unload his Current TV to Al Jazeera before the new year dawned.

What makes the Goldman move distasteful is that it wasn't even two months ago that CEO Blankfein was mouthing off in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he endorsed tax increases "especially for the wealthiest" -- along with a plug to cut entitlements to all you freeloaders out there.

If you're pushing the position that the rich should pay more to help fix the deficit, it doesn't quite follow to employ a tax dodge, says Dennis Kelleher, president of the Washington-based public interest group Better Markets Inc.

"Goldman's quickie year-end tax shenanigans deprived the government of what it otherwise would get," he says. "So they either cause the debt to go up, or cause others to pay more by the taxes they are avoiding."

DuVally, the Goldman spokesman, declined to comment when I asked whether it was inconsistent for Goldman to make a move for its executives to avoid taxes after Blankfein endorsed increases for the wealthy.

I've got to hand it to Goldman. The firm is a master of the "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" brand of politics and public relations. One minute, Goldman is cranking out press releases about its devotion to women entrepreneurs in its philanthropic "10,000 women" program. The next, it is announcing its annual list of new partners that includes a paltry 10 women but 60 men.

Goldman was a victim on the defensive when Greg Smith, a former employee, wrote a New York Times op-ed on March 14, blasting the firm for having "morally bankrupt people" who needed to be weeded out. You could almost feel sorry for poor Goldman, which shipped out a memo reminding employees that their estimable employer had been named one of the best places to work in the United Kingdom only weeks before the London-based Smith's "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs" essay.

By the time Smith published a book seven months later, the firm had turned ruthless revenge-seeker, even sharing parts of Smith's self-evaluations with the media. A "best place to work?" Really? Careful what you say in the press -- and in your HR file -- if you get your paycheck from a Goldman-style operation.

The brouhaha over Smith's op-ed and book stirred up debate of the "What did you expect of an investment bank operating in capitalistic society?" type.

Fair enough. Banks are not in the philanthropy business -- even if they spend as much time as Goldman does talking about its good deeds and famous "business principles." ("Our clients always come first" is famously No. 1 on the list.)

At Goldman and other "too big to fail" banks, though, employees walk through the doors each morning knowing that the rest of us will be forced to bail them out again should another crisis ensue. We taxpayers provide the insurance policy that they enjoy without ever sending us premiums. In October of 2008, Goldman got $10 billion in taxpayer money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which it ultimately paid back.

Blankfein, like other bank CEOs, would later make the case that Goldman wasn't "relying on" that government help.

But leaf through the tomes of some of the regulators who lived through the crisis, and you start to wonder whether our tax-dodging heroes might be out of jobs today if the public hadn't fronted a bailout.

From "Bull by the Horns," by former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Sheila Bair: Goldman and Morgan Stanley were "teetering on the edge" in the fall of 2008.

From "Bailout: An Inside Account of how Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street," by Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general to oversee the Troubled Assets Relief Program: Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke "confided that he believed that Goldman Sachs would have been the next to go" after Morgan Stanley.

We need to change the conversation here.

Goldman and its too-big-to-fail brethren are banks that accepted welfare and are in debt to U.S. taxpayers for averting disaster. This hasn't been about hard-nosed capitalism since those first TARP wire transfers made their way into Goldman Sachs' coffers.

As for the bank's recent tax-reduction maneuver, it's another reminder that Goldman's management is either clueless about how bad it looks or doesn't care. Sometimes bad PR is a just a cost of doing business.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Susan Antilla.

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TP students to get hands-on training at veterinary hospital

SINGAPORE: Students of Temasek Polytechnic will get hands-on experience at a veterinary hospital, Mount Pleasant Animal Medical Centre (MPAMC), from May 2013.

It will be part of their training for a Diploma in Veterinary Technology (VET).

The students will be guided by staff and will learn how to apply what they have learnt in the classroom to real-life situations in a veterinary hospital setting.

They will also learn how to run a veterinary hospital, such as client relations and communication, emergency surgeries and critical animal care.

-CNA/ac

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Ailing Hugo Chavez to miss inauguration date

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Officials say Hugo Chavez will not be in Venezuela for inauguration day


• NEW: Government, opposition differ on what happens next; lawmakers debating issue


• Chavez's term automatically renews, the government says


• The Constitution makes it clear that this is not the case, opponents say

(CNN) -- Medical treatment in Cuba will keep Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from being sworn in for a new term this week, a top official said Tuesday.

At the same time, supporters and opponents of Chavez are bracing for a legal battle over whether the inauguration can be postponed.

Venezuela's vice president said in a statement Tuesday that the inauguration would occur before the country's Supreme Court at a "later date," hours after the opposition called on the nation's top court to decide whether that's possible.

Chavez has been undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba for the past month, most recently experiencing respiratory complications.

Venezuela's Constitution provides guidance on what should occur if a president cannot be inaugurated before the National Assembly, but supporters and critics of Chavez have different interpretations.

A statement from Venezuela's vice president read before lawmakers Tuesday said that the constitution authorized "at a later date, the swearing-in before the Supreme Court."

"The process of post-surgical recuperation must continue past January 10 of this year, so he will not be able to appear on that date before the National Assembly," the statement said.

Lawmakers were fiercely debating the issue Tuesday afternoon.

Henrique Capriles, the man Chavez defeated at the polls in October, said earlier Tuesday that the Supreme Court must clarify the confusion.

"There is a conflict here. What is the Supreme Court waiting on?" Capriles asked.

As far as the opposition is concerned, Capriles said, the constitution is clear that the president's term ends on January 10 and a new period begins.

If Chavez is unable to be sworn in, it creates a leadership vacuum that must be filled by the National Assembly president, and the possibility of new elections arise, Capriles said.

National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello has said that he has no intention of assuming power if Chavez is not sworn in.

The government contends that Chavez's new term begins automatically because he was re-elected and that the inauguration could be held later.

"When (the opposition) talks about a power vacuum, they are proposing a coup," Cabello said, the state-run AVN news agency reported.

There is no such automatic continuity of power, Capriles said, arguing that "the only thing that has continuity are the country's problems."

"If the constitution is not followed, or there is a conflict of interpretation, the Supreme Court has to take a position," he said.

Capriles expressed concern about unrest or political crisis in the absence of a decision by the high court.

Chavez, 58, has not been seen in public since arriving in Havana for his fourth cancer operation in early December, fueling speculation that his health is worse than the government is letting on.

Last week, a government spokesman said Chavez was battling a severe lung infection that has caused respiratory failure. Ernesto Villegas said the president was following a strict treatment regimen for "respiratory insufficiency" caused by the infection.

His condition remained unchanged as of Monday, the government said in a statement.

"Treatment has been administered permanently and rigorously, and the patient is supporting it," the statement said.

If Chavez is unable to be inaugurated before lawmakers on Thursday as scheduled, the constitution says he can be sworn in before the Supreme Court.

But the wording is not clear about whether the inauguration before the Supreme Court must occur on Thursday, whether it must occur in the country or who should run Venezuela in the meantime.

Chavez's party has called for his supporters to gather in front of the presidential palace on Thursday in support of the president.

CNN's Paula Newton and Esprit Smith contributed to this report.

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Father of slain Tulsa twins: "My life's gone"

TULSA, Okla. Four women were found shot dead inside an apartment in south Tulsa on Monday afternoon, with a three-year-old boy as the only survivor, CBS affiliate KOTV Tulsa reported.

Now a father is coming to grips with losing his twin daughters, whom police identified as Rebeika Powell, 23, and Kayetie Melchor, 23, as among the four victims.

"My life's gone. My kids are gone," said Larry Powell.

Tulsa police said the four women were discovered around noon, within an hour of being shot. Aside from Powell and Melchor, the other two victims identified by police were Misty Nunley, 33, and Julie Jackson, 55. The three-year-old boy may have witnessed his mother's death.

"The little baby, you know, he had to sit there all day and look at what they did. How could you do something like that?" asked Larry Powell.

Powell's son died from the flu in 2003 and now his remaining children are gone. "You've got nothing left," said Powell. "All I've got are my two little grand kids and what am I going to do? Their parents are gone. My granddaughter is going crazy over there right now."

Neighbor Gail Barton knew some of the women who were killed. "They were all so lively and fun and beautiful, really were beautiful girls," she said and added: "To take such beauty and life away from so many people and to harm so many family members in the process and for what? Money?"

Police are still seeking a suspect and a motive for the crime.

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Jodi Arias: Who Is the Admitted Killer?

Jodi Arias is a woman that many can't keep their eyes off of--a soft-spoken, small-framed 32-year-old who last year won a jailhouse Christmas caroling contest. But she is also an admitted killer who is now on trial in Arizona for the 2008 murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Sitting in a Maricopa County court, Arias, whose trial resumes today, cries every time prosecutors describe what she admits she did -- stab her one-time boyfriend Travis Alexander 27 times, slit his throat and shoot him in the head.

Arias grew up in the small city of Yreka, Calif. She dropped out of high school, but received her GED while in jail a few years ago. She was an aspiring photographer; her MySpace page includes several albums of pictures, one of which was called "In loving memory of Travis Alexander."

FULL COVERAGE: Jodi Arias Murder Trial

Woman Facing Death Penalty Called Jealous by Prosecutors Watch Video

Ariz. Woman Faces Death Penalty in Boyfriend's Slaying Watch Video

"Jodi wanted nothing but to please Travis," defense attorney Jennifer Wilmot said in her opening statements, but added that there was another reality – that Arias was Alexander's "dirty little secret."

Arias' attorneys want the jury to believe she killed Alexander in June of 2008 in self defense, that he abused her, and she feared for her life when she attacked him in the shower of his Mesa, Ariz., home.

Alexander's family and friends say Arias was a stalker who killed him in cold blood. They say the 30-year-old was a successful businessman who overcame all the odds. His parents were drug addicts, and he grew up occasionally homeless until he converted to Mormonism and turned his life around.

Jodi Arias Trial: A Timeline of Events in the Arizona Murder Case

"He actually had everything going for him," said Dave Hall, one of Alexander's friends. "A beautiful home, a beautiful car, a great income."

Alexander kept a blog, and in a haunting last entry, just two weeks before his murder, he wrote about trying to find a wife.

"This type of dating to me is like a very long job interview," he wrote. "Desperately trying to find out if my date has an axe murderer penned up inside of her."

Alexander did date a killer. It's now up to the jury to decide if she killed in self defense.

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Why Al Jazeera deal doesn't seem right

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Al Gore sold Current to al Jazeera and could net an estimated $70 million


• Howard Kurtz: Gore's Current network failed to gain an identity or viewers


• He says it's odd that the former vice president is selling to an oil-rich potentate


• Kurtz: Al Jazeera may have a tough time getting traction with U.S. viewers

Editor's note: Howard Kurtz is the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and is Newsweek's Washington bureau chief. He is also a contributor to the website Daily Download.

(CNN) -- So Al Gore starts a liberal cable network, which turns into a complete and utter flop, then sells it to a Middle East potentate in a deal that will bring him an estimated $70 million.

Is America a great country or what?

There is something highly unusual -- OK, just plain weird -- about a former vice president of the United States doing this deal with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

Howard Kurtz

Al Jazeera, owned by said emir's government, is trying to buy its way into the American television market by purchasing Current TV for a half billion dollars. The only thing stranger would be if Gore had sold Current to Glenn Beck -- oh wait, Beck did try to buy it and was told no way within 15 minutes.

So the sale was in part about ideology, which opens the door to examining why Gore believes Al Jazeera gives "voice to those who are not typically heard" and speaks "truth to power."

Bill O'Reilly, on Fox News, calls the network "anti-American." Fox pundit Dick Morris says Gore has sold to a fount of "anti-Israel propaganda." Such labels are rooted in the network's role during the height of the war on terror, when it aired smuggled videos of Osama bin Laden and was denounced by Bush administration officials.

Watch: How Lance Armstrong lied to me about doping

But Al Jazeera English, the spinoff channel launched in 2006, doesn't have the same reputation. In fact, no less a figure than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised it as "real news," and the channel has won journalism awards for its reporting on the Arab Spring and other global events.

To be sure, the main Al Jazeera network gives a platform to such figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He's the Muslim cleric in Egypt who, The Washington Post gas reported, frequently appears on air to castigate Jews and America and has praised suicide bombings. But when I went to the home page of Al Jazeera English the other day, there was video of David Frost, the acclaimed British journalist who now works for the main network, interviewing Israeli President Shimon Peres.

That's not to say Al Jazeera America, the working name for the new channel, won't have its own biases. Al Jazeera English is sometimes determined to paint the U.S. in a negative light.

During a report on President Barack Obama signing a renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which entails a legitimate controversy over civil liberties, the reporter said flatly that the law "violate(s) U.S. constitutional rights in the name of national security."

Watch: Can Al Jazeera make it in the American market?

Dave Marash, the ABC News veteran who once worked for Al Jazeera English, told me the network has a "post-colonial" view of America and its stories can be infused with that attitude.

And there are real questions about how independent these channels are from the Qatar government that helps bankroll them. The director-general of Al Jazeera, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani, is a member of the country's royal family and has no background in journalism.

Such details add to the odd spectacle of the ex-veep, who would have been running Mideast policy had he won a few more votes in Florida, selling -- and some say selling out -- to the emir. Not to mention that the crusader against climate change is taking petrodollars from an empire built on oil, the bete noire of environmentalists.

Watch: Hey Fox, Hillary Clinton was sick after all

But what is Al Jazeera buying? The network is going to have a tough time cracking the American market.

Its earlier reputation makes the company highly controversial, and other cable carriers might follow the lead of Time Warner Cable (which is no longer owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner) in refusing to carry it. These carriers agreed to air Current TV, after all, and contracts generally require them to approve a major change in programming.

Global politics aside, it may just be bad business. There's a reason Al Jazeera English, which will supply 40% of the content to the new channel, has barely gotten a foothold in the United States. Most Americans aren't lusting for a steady diet of international news.

Watch: Did Nancy Pelosi go too far in photoshopping picture of congresswomen?

There's no denying that Gore, a onetime newspaper reporter who had testy relations with the press during his 2000 campaign, presided over a lousy cable channel. No one quite knew what Current was during the years when it aired mostly low-rent entertainment fare and was famous mainly for North Korea taking two of its correspondents, including Lisa Ling's sister Laura, into custody.

Then Gore tried to relaunch it as a talking head channel to the left of MSNBC, hiring Keith Olbermann -- a relationship that ended with his firing and mutual lawsuits -- along with the likes of Eliot Spitzer and Jennifer Granholm, former Michigan governor. Gore himself offered commentary during major political events.

It was the utter failure of that incarnation of Current that prompted Gore and co-founder Joel Hyatt to put the thing up for sale.

Some detractors have slammed Gore for hypocrisy because, while he has advocated higher taxes on the rich, he tried to get the Al Jazeera deal done by December 31 to avoid the Obama tax hike. (The sale didn't close until January 2.) I don't see a problem trying to legally take advantage of changes in the tax code, no matter what your political stance.

Nor do I want to prejudge Al Jazeera America. The marketplace will decide its fate.

But there is something unsettling about Gore making off with such a big payday from a government-subsidized channel after making such bad television. Nice work if you can get it.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz.

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Football: Ba says Torres still Chelsea's main man

LONDON: Demba Ba insists his arrival at Chelsea has done nothing to affect Fernando Torres's position as the main striker at Stamford Bridge.

Ba made the perfect start to his Blues career following his £7.5 million ($12 million) move from Newcastle United, scoring twice in the 5-1 FA Cup third round victory at Southampton while Torres remained on the bench.

Torres is expected to be restored to the line-up when Premier League rivals Swansea City visit west London for the first leg of the League Cup semi-final on Wednesday, although Chelsea manager Rafael Benitez could pair the two strikers from the start.

Ba's impact means Chelsea immediately appear much less reliant on the inconsistent Torres and he may well challenge the Spain international's position as the first choice forward in the longer term.

But the Senegal striker has made it clear he sees Torres as the senior partner as he attempts to establish himself at his new club.

"I just want to enjoy my football, it's not about pressure, it's about playing a game I like, and that's what I'm doing," Ba said.

"I'm here to help the group and the team; it's not about taking the position of someone else. I know Fernando is the main man. I've just come, I will learn from people and I will learn from him as well because his history is much bigger than mine."

And the forward claims he has already benefited from playing in front of European champions Chelsea's playmakers, including Juan Mata and Frank Lampard.

He added: "It makes football look easy, I just try to run in behind and create space for the midfielders because I know when they have space they will be dangerous.

"When you have players like this, that understand football perfectly, you just have to run and the ball will come into your feet, and that's what I tried to do.

"I'm very pleased, I saw it when I played against them, but they are world-class players and when you play with them it's completely different. They create spaces, provide good passes and they are very intelligent in their game."

A convincing victory in the first leg will turn thoughts towards a place in the Wembley final and divert attention away from Lampard's contract situation.

Steve Kutner, the England midfielder's agent insisted Lampard, 34, has been told he will definitely not be offered a new deal.

"Chelsea executives told Frank in Japan then again re-confirmed with his agent after the Everton victory that, in no circumstances, will he be offered a new contract to stay at Chelsea Football Club after the end of this season," said Kutner. "Nothing since has changed in any respect."

Swansea were held 2-2 by Arsenal in the FA Cup but manager Michael Laudrup opted to rest a number of key players in that game, placing Michu and Pablo Hernandez on the bench and omitting Ashley Williams and Angle Rangel from the squad.

All are set to start at Stamford Bridge and Laudrup believes the side's success in forcing a replay against Arsenal confirms the strength in-depth in his squad.

Laudrup will be forced to draw on those resources during a testing month in which they will play at least six more games, even if they defeat Arsenal in the return to set up a fourth round FA Cup trip to second-tier Brighton.

"It is very busy but when you play at the highest level you always want to win," said Denmark great Laudrup. "When you play the big sides away from home it's special for the players.

"If we can continue with this positive momentum it gives a lot to the team. We may lose two or three games now but nobody can take away from us what we've achieved already this season."

-AFP/ac

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Enough with 'Happy New Year' already

Time to put away all things New Year's, says Dean Obeidallah, starting with the constant "Happy New Year" greeting

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Dean Obeidallah: You can stop saying Happy New Year now. It's tacky and too late


• Even South Jersey School of Etiquette president said after the first week, stop


• He says we don't say Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah when those holidays are over


• Obeidallah: It gets progressively more insincere. Lets agree to cut off the greeting at 7 days

Editor's note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is a political comedian and frequent commentator on various TV networks including CNN. He is the editor of the politics blog "The Dean's Report" and co-director of the upcoming documentary, "The Muslims Are Coming!" Follow him on Twitter: @deanofcomedy

(CNN) -- It's now a week after New Years Day, can we please stop saying, "Happy New Year?" Telling people "Happy New Year" more than a week after the first of the year is like keeping your Christmas lights up until February. It's tacky. And I grew up in New Jersey; I know a thing or two about tacky.

Plus it's bad New Year's etiquette. That's not just me talking, that's the opinion of etiquette expert Crystal Seamon-Primas, founder of the South Jersey School of Etiquette. (Stop laughing. We are not all "Jersey Shore.") Seamon-Primas told me: "In my opinion, after the first week, I stop wishing others a Happy New Year, the new year is well on its way."

Dean Obeidallah

The biggest reason we need to stop New Year's wishes weeks into the year is that it sounds so insincere. Hollow, not heartfelt, like something you say to a co-worker you really don't know well to fill an awkward silence, a small step up from, "That's some weather we're having, huh?"

The same goes for the insincerity you detect when people greet you a few days after January 1 with the question: "So how's your new year been so far?" Really? You are actually asking if I have survived the first "grueling" 48 hours of the year? If you really care about how my year is going, ask me in October.

Look: No one says "Happy Thanksgiving" on December 1. I never heard anyone offer a "Happy Fourth of July" on July 6. And when is the last time you heard a "Happy St. Patrick's Day" on March 19?

Even with the big religious holidays, well wishing starts before the holiday and stops with its occurrence. Go ahead and joyfully exchange wishes of "Have a Merry Christmas" the week before the holiday through Christmas Day, but not on December 29. Happy Hanukah greetings are fine throughout the eight-day holiday but not after. And Ramadan wishes are contained within the 30 days of the holy month and stop with the Eid celebration at the month's end.

Sure, I get it: It's a wish for a full year, not just a day. But among the vast array of omens that predict good fortune for the coming year, not one involves saying Happy New Year's for weeks on end. Believe me, there are some odd superstitions out there that will supposedly bring you luck for the year, from kissing a loved one as the clock strikes midnight to writing your new year's wishes on a piece of paper and planting it in the ground to eating lentils or black-eyed peas on New Year's Day.

There are even admonitions to avoid certain activities on New Year's Day because they portend bad luck for the coming year. One such superstition tells us that eating poultry on New Year's Day means you will financially struggle for the coming year, which I really wish I had known before I ate chicken with mixed vegetables on January 1.

If even one custom instructed us that extended New Year's wishes would increase the chances the year would indeed be a good one, I'd be saying Happy New Year's every day until April. But none do.

Consequently, I propose that from here out we need to come together in a bipartisan fashion -- as a lesson to our dysfunctional Congress -- and stop with New Year's wishes after the first seven days of the year. If someone does offer you such a greeting two or three weeks into the New Year, don't be rude, simply explain that it's like wishing someone Happy Valentines Day on February 18

In time, hopefully we'll all be on the same page on this issue. However, even if you are reading this after January 7, I still sincerely wish you, and your family, a very happy and healthy New Year. But this is the very last time I will say that in 2013.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dean Obeidallah.

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Newtown seen as factor in Ala. teen's bomb plot

PHENIX CITY, Ala. An Alabama teenager teen who described himself as a white supremacist made journal entries about a plot to bomb classmates three days after the Newtown school massacre and began building small homemade explosives, a sheriff said Monday.

Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor told The Associated Press that he believed the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary was a factor because the first date in the boy's journal describing the plan was Dec. 17 — three days after the Connecticut killings.

Seventeen-year-old Derek Shrout is charged with attempted assault after authorities say he planned to use homemade explosives to attack fellow students at Russell County High School.

Taylor said the boy told investigators that he's a white supremacist and five of the six students he named in his journal are black. The journal was found by a teacher, who turned it over to authorities.

A search of Shrout's home found about 25 small tobacco cans and two larger tins, all with holes drilled in them and containing pellets similar to BB's, reported CBS affiliate WRBL. Taylor said all they needed were black powder and fuses to become explosives. The journal also allegedly mentioned using firearms. The sheriff said Shrout's father owned a few household weapons, like a hunting rifle, a shotgun and a handgun.

"He just talks about some students, he specifically named six students and one faculty member and he talked about weapons and the amounts of ammunition for each weapon that he would use if he attacked the school," Taylor said.

The sheriff said he didn't believe the teen's initial claim that the journal was a work of fiction.

"When you go to his house and you start finding the actual devices that he talked about being made, no, it's not fiction anymore," Taylor said. "Those devices were — all they needed was the black powder and the fuse — he had put a lot of time and thought into that."

The teen, who is thin and wears glasses, said little during an initial court appearance Monday. District Judge David Johnson set bond at $75,000 and the teen's attorney said the family expected to post it by the end of the day for his release.

The judge ordered the teen not to contact anyone at his school, students or teachers, and not to use the Internet without parental supervision.

His attorney, Jeremy Armstrong, declined to discuss specifics of the case, but he did say that the talk of the case he has heard so far was "blown a little out of proportion."

"Our position is that our client had no intention to harm anybody," he said.

Seale is about 80 miles east of Montgomery.

More from CBS affiliate WRBL:

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Accused Shooter Was 'Relaxed' After Massacre

Accused movie theater gunman James Holmes was "relaxed" and "detached" when police confronted him just moments after he had allegedly killed 12 people and wounded dozens more in the Aurora, Colo., massacre, a police officer testified today.

A preliminary hearing for Holmes began today in Colorado, with victims and families present. One family member likened attending the hearing to having to "face the devil."

The first two witnesses to take the stand were Aurora police officers who responded to the theater and spotted Holmes standing by his car at the rear of the theater.

Officer Jason Oviatt said he first thought Holmes was a cop because he was wearing a gas mask and helmet, but as he got closer realized he was not an officer and held Holmes at gunpoint.

Holmes allegedly opened fire at the crowded movie theater during a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" on July 20, 2012. In addition to wearing the body armor and gas mask, Holmes had dyed his hair red.

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

Throughout the search and arrest, Holes was extremely compliant, the officer said.

"He was very, very relaxed," Oviatt said. "These were not normal reactions to anything. He seemed very detached from it all."

Oviatt said Holmes had extremely dilated pupils and smelled badly when he was arrested.

Arapahoe County Sheriff/AP Photo

Aurora, Colorado Gunman: Neuroscience PhD Student Watch Video

Officer Aaron Blue testified that Holmes volunteered that he had four guns and that there were "improvised explosive devices" in his apartment and that they would go off if the police triggered them.

Holmes was dressed for the court hearing in a red jumpsuit and has brown hair and a full beard. He did not show any reaction when the officers pointed him out in the courtroom.

This is the most important court hearing in the case so far, essentially a mini-trial as prosecutors present witness testimony and evidence—some never before heard—to outline their case against the former neuroscience student.

The hearing at the Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, Colo., could last all week. At the end, Judge William Sylvester will decide whether the case will go to trial.

Prosecutors say they will present potentially gruesome photos and videos in addition to 911 calls from the night of the shooting that left 12 people dead and 58 wounded. They will aim to convince the judge that there is enough evidence against Holmes to proceed to a trial.

It is expected that the prosecution's witnesses will include the Aurora police lead detective, first responders, the coroner and a computer forensic specialist.

In an unusual move, defense attorneys may call two witnesses. Last week, the judge ruled that Holmes can call the witnesses to testify on his "mental state," but it is not clear who the witnesses are.

A court-imposed gag order days after the shooting has kept many of the details under wraps, so much of the information could be new to the public.

Hundreds of family members and victims are expected to attend the hearing.

Holmes has been charged with 166 counts of murder, attempted murder, possession of explosives and crime of violence. The district attorney has not decided whether to seek the death penalty, and Holmes' defense team believes Holmes is mentally ill. He has not entered a plea.

One of the attendees will be MaryEllen Hanson, whose great-niece Veronica Moser Sullivan, 6, was killed in the shooting. Veronica's mother Ashley was shot and is now a quadriplegic and suffered a miscarriage.

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