They're baaaaaack! And sharper than ever:

Election Watch:

• A Fil-Am Colma, CA city councilwoman is speaking out about her experience with domestic violence [1].

• Nikki Haley's points are dropping, and she's fundraising the home field [2].

• And in the state to the north, IndiAm Steve Rao is running for Wake County board of commissioners [3] from across the aisle and a generation from his predecessor.

• An Orange County congressional race [4] pits Repub-skewing Viet-Ams against a larger number of unreliably voting, Demo-skewing Latinos. Politics in Obama's America! Here's more [5].

• Speaking of Obama, the Canned One is backing Ahn "Joseph" Cao's ethically-compromised Demo opponent [6]. More on that [7]. This one is making my head hurt.

• Apparently, San Francisco has more Korean American candidates than ever before, but the KoreAm community isn't supporting them [8].

• Indi Am San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris is running for CA attorney general with Obama's endorsement [9].

• Apparently, China is turning into a bugbear in this year's election [10], with hit ads accusing candidates of ties to the PRC. Vincent who?

In other news:

• Interview with a top casting director, Koream Keli Lee [11].

• Fil-Am former U.S. diplomat flees South Korea to the Philippines ahead of accusations of fraud [12], but gets arrested anyway. (He's also wanted in California for fraud.)

• Hawaiian Fil-Am newspaper employee found guilty of killing his 19-year-old son [13] after an argument.

• IndiAm designer Anand Jon, who was convicted in 2008 in California of serial rape [14], is facing similar charges in New York [15].

• A 71-year-old Iranian American businessman, who was jailed in Iran for two years with no charges, has been released. [16]

• Karen Tei Yamashita's novel of the Asian American Movement, I-Hotel, has been nominated for a National Book Award [17]. (Full disclosure: I worked on this novel as a book publicist earlier this year.)

• The new Japanese American museum of San Jose opens this weekend [18]. And Chicago's Chinese American Museum reopens [19] after a fire.

• 3000 Hmong Americans protested in Sacramento this week [20] against the ongoing prosecution of 12 Hmong Americans for plotting to overthrow the Laotian communist government.

• An Orange County Viet Am lawyer is handling a class action suit by Vietnamese Gulf fishermen [21] against BP for fundamentally changing their way of life.

• Is retro Chinese American food [22] a new trend? Let's hope not, for your sake, General Tso.

• 57-year-old KoreAm cyber bully drops his campaign [23] against a Korean singer. Bizarre.

• It may be Asian American pop's moment in the mainstream [24]. And O-Dub has a quote for you about it.