The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced yesterday it is folding, six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. "It's really declining revenue in the face of a series of attacks from partisan operatives," a spokesman says, adding that they have "taken away our ability to raise the resources we need."
Several of its largest affiliates, including ACORN New York and ACORN California, have already broken away and changed their names in a bid to ditch the tarnished image of their parent organization. ACORN's financial situation and reputation went into free fall within days of the videos' release in September, when Congress yanked federal funding. Earlier this month, a US judge reiterated an earlier ruling that the move was unconstitutional, but that didn't mean any money would be automatically be restored. (More ACORN stories.)