Tucker Carlson, last seen impersonating Keith Olbermann as a prank, sent Matthew Boyle, one of his lackeys from the Daily Caller, out to defraud the government and see what you can buy on food stamps.

What can you buy with food stamps? Pretty much anything sold in a grocery store, other than tobacco, booze and hot food. To find out what that really means, I took my November stipend to Whole Foods, a pricey organic food emporium that is as much a yuppie metaphor as it is a supermarket.

My first stop was the seafood counter, where I found the thickest swordfish steak I could, which at $18.99 per pound also turned out to be the most expensive item in the department. Then I headed to the coffee section, where I dropped $11.99 for a pound of fresh roasted beans.

From there, the milk aisle, where $8 bought a half gallon of pure organic goat’s milk. Nearby was the cheese section, where I found a tiny wedge of fancy-looking cheese from some European city I’ve never heard of and threw it my cart.

Last I hit the produce section, where I discovered a small but tasty-looking container of Chanterelle mushrooms. Price? $13.99, plus tax.

At the checkout line, I whipped out my shiny new Electronic Benefits Transfer card and watched the cashier ring up my order. The total (minus the cheese, which I discarded at the last moment) came to $51.10. Not bad for a gourmet meal, especially since I wasn’t paying for it.

This smug report will now join the rest of the urban legends about welfare queens and Cadillacs, proving once again that right-wingers are best at beating up on the weakest in our society so they can make fun of them in the process.

Of course, if Mr. Boyle had been stopped by the system from buying his fancy breads and mushrooms and told that he’s only allowed to buy certain products, he would have whined about Big Brother government looking over his shoulder and infringing his right to buy whatever he wants with money that he’s basically stealing from the people who really need it. Cheers.