Unbelievable. The Department of Justice website has been attacked and is now down. So is Universal Music. Anonymous has taken credit, saying it's payback for the MegaUpload Indictment today.

Here's the text of the press release DOJ issued announcing the MegaUpload Indictments.

More here. You can follow along on Twitter, at #OpMegaUpload, #MegaUpload, #Anonymous and @anondaily

One tweet says the FBI's website is next. YourAnonNews says "Incoming Database Dump. Get Ready "

Internet anarchy has arrived. No one should underestimate the abilities of Anonymous. [More...]

The details aren't pretty. While Gingrich was clamoring for Bill Clinton's ouster due to Monica Lewinsky, here's what his ex-wife Marianne says he was doing: Asking for her permission to continue his 6 year affair with his present wife Calista. [More...]

This could be the first domino to fall:

Rick Perry is telling supporters that he will drop his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

Jed asks who Perry will endorse. I say no one for now. [I'm wrong again, he is endorsing Gingrich. Proving yet again that Perry has no clue when it comes to national politics. If by some miracle Gingrich wins the nomination, the GOP will lose a landslide. Perry wants credit for that?] the key point here is with Newt surging in South Carolina, if he has a strong showing, Santorum would be next to drop out and that would set up the much awaited Mitt v.the non-Mitt battle in Florida. I think the Not Mitt forces will make their last stand there.

The Weed Wars continue. Here's the U.S. Attorney's press release on yesterday's California medical marijuana dispensary raids. DOJ's "justification" for the raids is in this earlier press release.

The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear two medical marijuana cases.

The California Supreme Court has jumped into the fray again over the legality of medical marijuana laws, deciding on Wednesday to review two lower court rulings that impact how and whether local governments can regulate pot dispensaries across the state.

In their weekly closed-door session, the justices voted unanimously to review cases out of Long Beach and Riverside that dealt with the ongoing conflict between California's voter-approved law allowing the use of medical marijuana and federal laws barring the use or sale of the drug. The state Supreme Court's rulings in the cases are likely to have a widespread impact in the Bay Area, where cities from San Jose to Oakland have regulations dealing with medical marijuana providers.

[More...]

The latest in corporations are people too:

Hedge funds have been known to use hardball tactics to make money. Now they have come up with a new one: suing Greece in a human rights court to make good on its bond payments.The novel approach would have the funds arguing in the European Court of Human Rights that Greece had violated bondholder rights[.]

It's probably just a semantic question (this may be the court with jurisdiction over the subject matter), but it is certainly funny, in a strange way, to see hedge funds suing in a human rights court. The optics are not the best. The legal argument goes as follows:

Legal experts suggest that the investors may have a case because if Greece changes the terms of its bonds so that investors receive less than they are owed, that could be viewed as a property rights violation — and in Europe, property rights are human rights.

(Emphasis supplied.) Ron Paul might say "We are all Europeans now!" And Mitt Romney might consider apologizing for America not agreeing that property rights are human rights.

Speaking for me only

As if Facebook wasn't intrusive enough, it's taken another giant leap, adding new apps that tell us way more than we want to know about people we've "friended" and telling our "friends" way more than we ever intended to share.

The apps are all set up to use the “frictionless sharing” function on the social network, meaning that users only have to give an app permission to share information once. After that, the app updates automatically to a user’s profile, letting their friends know instantly what they may be eating, studying or listening to at any given moment.

So now, as soon as you buy a concert ticket, your Ticketmaster app will let your friends know what you’ve purchased immediately.

I'm so close to deleting my account entirely. It took me a half hour last night to figure out how to get rid of seeing what news articles on WAPO and Yahoo "friends" read and what they ate. [More...]

Marianne Gingrich, the second of Newt Gingrich's three wives, is ready to unload. ABC News has the interview, which as of now, it plans to air on Nightline Thursday night. Excerpts should be available during the day. They aired a short clip Weds. night with the teaser that she says "there are things voters need to know." The only direct quote is of her saying that Newt looked directly at her and told her "Calista doesn't care what I do." The interviewer asks her what that means, and then cuts out before her answer. Guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Marianne Gingrich as spoken out before. [More...]

More DEA raids on California dispensaries.

The U.S. attorney's office press release issued today states that the raids were part of an ongoing effort to crack down on storefront dispensaries in California, and that letters "went out today to the owners and operators of currently operating or recently closed marijuana stores--nearly three dozen in Costa Mesa, and one now-shuttered store in Newport Beach. All known stores in these two South Orange County cities are now the subject of federal enforcement actions."

The Supreme Court gives a death row inmate another chance after a mailroom mix-up at his lawyer's firm caused a missed filing deadline. The opinion is here.

An alleged $62 million insider trading bust in New York. The 7 charged are accused of reaping profits on shares of Dell, Inc.

A new season of American Idol begins tonight.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Several Senators and Congresspersons have come out in opposition to SOPA and PIPA today including PIPA co-sponsor Marc Rubio.

I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet.

Sen. Jeff Merkel:

Mark Zuckerberg comes out against SOPA on his personal FB page and got 75,000 likes in 10 minutes. It's now 45 minutes, and his post has 372,000 likes. Facebook's anti-SOPA/PIPA views are here. More blackout graphics below: [More...]

Wikipedia is dark.

Mozilla will be dark during the day.

[More...]

Kevin Drum quotes Andrew Sullivan:

[Liberals] have failed to notice that from the very beginning, Obama was playing a long game.

Drum remarks:

This is sort of a watered-down version of the 11-dimensional chess hosannas that deservedly got a lot of mockery back in the day. But it wasn't true of Obama then (both his campaign and governing strategies have been fairly straightforward) and it's not necessary to explain anything now.

I agree. However, I disagree when Drum writes "Why is Obama now taking a harder, more partisan approach toward his GOP adversaries? [. . . H]e's doing it because it's an election year. It's now time for contrast, not compromise. This is Campaigning 101."

I disagree because governing requires contrast too. A pol must convince the populace that how he wants to govern is the right way to go as opposed to the policies proposed by your opponents. FDR was not FDR because he was a firebrand liberal. He governed as he did, and politicked during the governing BTW, because he thought he needed those policies for good governance and, not coincidentally, to win reelection. In terms of political style, Obama followed the Clinton way, and now, as Clinton, he fights the contrast fight, because the Third Way did not work then and will not work now.

Speaking for me only

What's on your mind today? Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.