The data on the Mojang help site for whether the login servers are down is not accurate. As of this time, both my attempts to login and an alternate service check both state that services are down, while the help site is stating that they are online.

This is probably easiest to confirm now, because the servers are down at this time but (hopefully) will be back up soon.

This was put in the launcher as it is the most fitting project. It pertains more to the minecraft website.