Story of yesterday (and not in a good way) comes from Jim Galloway’s AJC blog…

According to state records, two candidates for [Georgia] governor — one Republican and one Democrat, both trained as high school educators — have had their teaching certificates suspended for misconduct involving female students.

Republican Ray McBerry had his certificate suspended for a week after allegations that he had “maintained an inappropriate relationship with a student and that he deliberately misrepresented the facts of the case in his first response to the school system’s investigation,” while a history teacher in 2004.

Democrat candidate Carl Camon resigned from his post at Valdosta High School in October rather than accept a five day suspension. “I was not going to serve a single day, a single hour, for something I didn’t do,” he explained this week.

Camon says he was set up by a group of unruly students he had disciplined. “A group of little girls in the back said, ‘Mr. Camon, we’re going to get you.’ And, buddy, they put it on me,” he said.

Camon accused the Public Standards Commission of a “witch hunt,” and said it would have no effect on his candidacy. “I’ve been kind of waiting for this to come. This is an opportunity for me to stand up as tall as I can for teachers who are innocent,” he said.

How many Freedom of Information Act requests do you think the Obama administration denied in the 2009 fiscal year?

I know it’s kind of a stab in the dark, but have a go. 100,000? No... 300,000?

That wouldn’t be unreasonable, since it’s round about the number turned down in George Bush’s final budget year. But it would be wrong.

According to the Associated Press the figure is 466,672. 

As Top of The Ticket points out, that’s quite something from the President who dispatched a memo in his first day saying:

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

And who yesterday launched ‘Sunshine Week’ to celebrate openness with the words:

As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our Democracy and ensure the public’s trust in their government.