Myself and others have experienced the same thing here. I would suspect a Destributed Denial of Service attack. That happens when hundreds or thousands of computers are programmed to send repeared queries that overload the server and takes out all services or really slows down the ones that are serviced. That this comes just as the Republicans have been sworn into the House of Representatives seems too much to be coincidence.
So, who's paying for it. Botnet rental, while not expensive, still costs something. Who do you thing is paying the bill?