Competing rallies demonstrate partisan divide over National Guard deployment
“So many of our elected officials are afraid and they do not have backbones,” Memphis City Council member JB Smiley said Sept. 18, 2025. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)
Opponents of an “occupation” by National Guard troops in the city and Republicans backing the arrival of the Guard both rallied to their cause Thursday in the city.
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Memphis City Council Jerri Green Shelby County Republican Party National Guard Brent TaylorBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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