Question

What’s the simplest rule which takes this DOM:

<div>
    <ul>
        <li>  
            <div>
                <a href="#" class="remove">link</a>
            </div>
        </li>
        <li>  
            <div>
                <span class="ok"></span>
            </div>
        </li>
        <li>  
            <div class="remove"></div>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

and removes all <li> elements, if any of them has a child at any depth which contains "remove" class. The result html is shown below:

<div>
    <ul>
        <li>  
            <div>
                <span class="ok"></span>
            </div>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

Answer 1

$('li:has(.remove)').remove();

http://api.jquery.com/has-selector/

From the docs:

The expression $(‘div:has(p)’) matches a <div> if a <p> exists
anywhere among its descendants, not just as a direct child.

http://jsfiddle.net/WNcKE/1/