Republicans who defend Russia and Vladimir Putin are disgraces to our country.Ever since the CIA and 17 other intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered with our election to help Donald Trump become president, conservatives have been scrambling to defend our longtime enemy.Trump and his team want everyone to ignore the facts and just let Trump become president even though he is illegitimate because Russia swayed voters by hacking our institutions. Even the FBI agrees with the CIA. But Republicans don t care because Russia helped their candidate win. If Russia had helped Hillary Clinton win, you can bet that Republicans would be screaming bloody murder and threatening impeachment along with endless investigations because they are total hypocrites when it comes down to it.During his final press conference of 2016, President Obama shamed Republicans for abandoning American values by approving of what Russia did and favoring Vladimir Putin, who will now have a puppet in the White House after January 20th unless the Electoral College rejects Trump on December 19th. Unless the American people genuinely think that the professionals in the CIA, the FBI, our entire intelligence infrastructure, many of whom, by the way, served in previous administrations and are Republicans, are less trustworthy than the Russians, then people should pay attention to what our intelligence agencies say,  Obama said. They can impact us if we lose track of who we are,  Obama continued about Russia.  They can impact us if we abandon our values. President Obama explained that Putin can weaken us if we  buy into notions that it s okay to intimidate the press  or persecute political opponents or discriminate against others. Obama then slammed Republicans for being so anti-Democrat that they ve started to view Russia and Putin favorably.And then he invoked Ronald Reagan to demonstrate just how shameful Republicans are acting today. There was a survey some of you saw where   now this is just one poll, but a pretty credible source   37% of Republican voters approve of Putin. Over a third of Republican voters approve of Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave. And how did this happen? It happened in part because for too long everything that happens in this town, everything that s said is seen through the lens of does this help or hurt us relative to Democrats or relative to President Obama. Obama concluded by predicting that we will continue to be  vulnerable to foreign influence  unless Republicans change.Here s the video via YouTube.Rather than admit that Trump is an illegitimate president-elect, Republicans would rather defend Russia so they can have power. That s really what this is about. They are absolutely okay with Russia meddling in our elections as long as they are the ones who benefit from it. That undermines our democracy and damages the integrity of our elections. It also opens the door for foreign entities to meddle in our elections on behalf of both parties, because if Republicans are allowed to get away with winning an election with support from Russia, what stops Democrats from getting help in 2020 from China or a different nation? The answer is nothing, because if Republicans whine about it they ll be nothing more than hypocrites.If the election results are allowed to stand and Trump is allowed to take office, the American people will have surrendered our political process to foreign powers. We will no longer control our own destiny and will instead be driven by propaganda from our enemies. That may be okay with Republicans, but the American people as a whole should be outraged and should demand a new election immediately.Featured image via Screenshot