Brookings Today, 9/5/14

A roundup of some of the content published today by Brookings.

• Our cyborg future. Benjamin Wittes and Jane Chong examine how the law will respond as we become more cyborg-like, and the divide between human and machine becomes ever more unstable.

• U.S. billionaires political power index. Darrell West, author of a forthcoming Brookings Institution Press book on billionaires, ranks the top U.S. billionaires in terms of their overall political power. 

• Mr. Putin’s war. Steven Pifer says Moscow’s denials of its involvement in eastern Ukraine “are unconvincing in the face of the sheer volume of reports.” 

• Tesla picks Nevada. Mark Muro looks at Tesla Motors’s decision to locate its gigafactory battery plant in Nevada, saying that while the state’s $1.3 billion attraction package may “haunt the state, the win is clearly huge.” 

• The job market grinds out gains. Gary Burtless reviews the newest BLS data on jobs, which show that employers added 142,000 to their payrolls in August, and says at this rate, “the nation will make progress toward reducing the overhang of excess unemployment.”

• On ISIS, Syria, Iran, and President Obama’s Middle East strategy. In a new Brookings Cafeteria podcast, Mike Doran offers his views on developments in the Middle East, including what he believes is the “great white whale” of President Obama’s Middle East strategy.