If you’re going to be in New York later this month, this year’s Personal Democracy Forum conference is coming up on June 29 and 30th. It’s basically the conference every year for people working at the nexus of the internet and politics. Some of the folks who will be there this year include White House CIO Vivek Kundra; Deputy CTO for Open Government Beth Noveck; State Department Senior Adviser for Innovation Alec Ross; New York Times columnist Frank Rich; Craigslist founder Craig Newmark; Fivethirtyeight.com blogger Nate Silver; Ning.com co-founder Gina Bianchini; Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey; Obama ’08 new media director Joe Rospars and a bunch of others. Click here for more information on who’s going to be there and how to register.

Now here’s the super cool part. Mobilizing the massive market power of TPM we’ve arranged so that you can get $100 off the registration fee if you use the the code “TPM” in the registration form.

Who says TPM doesn’t have you covered?

It’s been very difficult to get clear polling data. But Iran is holding a presidential election on Friday and it seems clear at least that the main challenger, reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi, is riding a surge of support that is building on dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad’s rule. Whether he can beat him is an open question — the quality of the polls in Iran are iffy and they’re contradictory at the moment. But it seems at least likely that he can force Ahmadinejad into a run-off later this month.

Needless to say, a defeat for Iranian hardliners, at the present moment, could have repercussions throughout the region.

Could be a very big deal.

Part of what’s churned things up so much over the last couple weeks has been Ahmadinejad’s particularly scathing attacks on Mousavi, his wife and unnamed people in the Iranian establishment. That prompted Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, himself a former president, to write an open letter criticizing the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for not reining Ahmadinejad or criticizing his behavior. To further add to the mix, Ahmadinejad beat Rafsanjani when he was elected the first time. And Rafsanjani, in turn, is the head of something called the Assembly of Experts which could, in theory, unseat Khamenei, though I don’t think anyone sees that as at all likely.

The factional infighting within Iran is notoriously difficult to follow and has an ability to make fools of all but those with the most expertise on the country, and sometimes even them. It’s also important to note that people who are fundamentally at odds with the country’s system of government simply aren’t allowed to run for office at all. Still, there are signs of give in the system and dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad, which could reshuffle what is in the realm of the possible in capitals around the region and even around the world.

The White House has now released a series of behind the scenes photos of Obama’s trip to the Middle East.

For whatever reason, the ones I liked the best were the ones behind the scenes with Rahm. Rahm on his blackberry in the Royal Palace in Riyadh. Rahm on a camel in Egypt. Rahm inside some Pyramid. Rahm walking in front of some Pyramid.

Of course, there are plenty of pics of the Obama guy too.

Shooting at/in US Holocaust Museum in DC.

Late Update: We’re getting scattered early reports. Eyewitnesses on the scene, reported by CNN, speak of five shots being fired inside the Museum. Another unconfirmed report says that one gunman is in custody and that either two or three people (including the gunman) were shot.

Latter Update: Further reports suggest three victims of the shooting, one critical, in addition to the suspect who was apparently shot leaving the Museum.

1:46 PM Update: The most recent news suggests that there are only two gunshot victims — a guard at the museum and the shooter himself. Wapo says there was a third gunshot victim. But other reports suggest the third person may have been cut by flying glass. This AP story notes the contradictory reports.

1:53 PM Update: A big and obvious question about this incident is how someone got a gun inside the Holocaust Museum, which presumably has heavy security. A current police press briefing suggests that the gunman was either in or rushing the entryway where the security set up is located, and that that is where the exchange of gunfire took place … the police spokesman answering questions was PIO David Schlosser.

2:09 PM Update: The latest news suggests that the gunman was a 89 year old male.

2:13 PM Update: Shooter apparently has a record of connections with white supremacist groups. NBC is reporting that the he tried to raid the Federal Reserve building in 1981. Long history of anti-Semitic and white supremacist remarks, etc.

2:22 PM Update: This is a photo of James W. von Brunn, the suspect in today’s shooting …

This is from his bio, apparently written by himself or someone sympathetic to him: “In 1981 Von Brunn attempted to place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest. He was tried in a Washington, D.C. Superior Court; convicted by a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal. He served 6.5 years in federal prison. (Read about von Brunn’s “Federal Reserve Caper” HERE.) He is now an artist and author and lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.”

We’re putting together a list of James W. von Brunn’s various writings on the web — a mix of anti-semitic and white supremacist rantings. Perhaps not surprisingly, he was also big on the ‘mystery’ about whether Barack Obama is really a US citizen. Here’s von Brunn’s rant on Obama’s citizenship.

And there’s more: von Brunn on Hitler’s ‘worst mistake‘.

And here’s von Brunn on immigration.

Here’s a run-down on the background of the suspect in today’s shooting at the Holocaust Museum.

Late Update: An index of links to von Brunn’s selected writings.

As we’ve been investigating the background of James von Brunn, the suspect in today’s shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC., we’ve learned that he’s not some unknown figure on the extreme racist right. He was seen as something of a revered elder.

One thing we’ve learned about James von Brunn is that he was apparentely a ‘birther’, one of these folks who claims that Barack Obama is not the legitimate president of the United States because he is not a natural born US citizen (this is all the ‘where’s the birth certificate’ nonsense).

The great majority of the people who’re into this stuff are just harmless wingers and nutballs. But this stuff has clearly also permeated the extremist fringe. We’ll be putting more up on this soon. But this is clearly of a piece with rising right-wing extremism and fringe violence that — uncomfortably as it is to say — is rising in tandem in the early months of the Obama presidency.

Shep Smith unloads on “more and more frightening” emails about Obama from Fox viewers.